Review by Benjamin Poole
Directed by: John Minton
Starring: Marc Bessant, Jason Williamson
Is there a more cinematic musical act than Portishead? I was sat for a screening of Julie Ducournau's Alpha a couple of weeks ago, a film which opens with a gorgeously oblique sequence soundtracked by the 90s "trip-hop" combo's imperial 'Roads', and the cinema swooned as if a wave had washed over us: how can it feel, this moment? Soulful, sensational and suffused with dangerous longing (Alpha is, otherwise, a load of old tut I'm afraid). Just listening to Portishead on headphones makes your life feel like a film; heightening each moment, as if your existence is rushing to complete an absent visual set (try 'Mysterons' in Morrisons: the weekly shop has never been so ardent). Working within such imagist media, it is perhaps inevitable that Geoff Barrow (founding member and producer of the band, co-writing and producing as part of Game's collaborative crew), who also soundtracked most of Alex Garland's cinematic output, here makes his debut feature; a movie which also serves as the introductory film of his Invada films company.
Working with Barrow are his long-time colleague John Minton (director), who has provided visuals for Portishead and Beak (Barrow's post-Portishead project - the guy just doesn't stop) in conjunction with other music videos, and co-writer Rob Williams (sidebar: I never thought the opportunity to say this in print would come up, but Rob is easily the most underrated comic book writer in the game. Consistently amazing on Dredd, and so so good on film adaptation stuff due to his clear love of the characters. His Robocop series is my second favourite Robocop thing ever. Also shout out to his pansexual Daken, too - adored).
Game comes with some pedigree, and this perhaps accounts for its searing idiosyncrasy. We open with a full frame of a pheasant, resplendent in its chestnut and green iridescence and merrily gobbling. In fragmented close ups of menacing black boots and a hand roughly gripping a wooden cosh, it turns out the poor thing is being stalked. The film affects the visual language of the slasher, but not the same grammar: this is slower, more elegant.. until the club makes rude contact and the screen smash cuts to red with the title Game...
The grace abides with poetic shots of the forest at night; beetles on bark, a delicate spider dangling from a dying leaf, a fox with something in its mouth: the images enlivened by a strange, pulsing electronic glow. It's so unhurried, deeply absorbing. Ruining the peace - within and without the diegesis - is the source of the illumination: an upturned car, with some poor bloke in it surrounded by broken glass, dripping blood, and, as we shall see, bad-drug detritus. The frame flicks between fetishised Ballardian close-ups of the wispy exhaust, the exposed chassis etc, and Magritte longshots of the upturned car, rendered absurd in the spinney surroundings. If One Battle After Another didn't exist it would be the best opening of the year.
In vibrant flashbacks, we see the doomed motorist (David - Marc Bessant) at a rave. We're back in the '90s, a halcyon age of more interesting cars and the uncomplicated pleasures of going to a field, being on an E and at one with the music and each other. Not our guy though. Wandering a car park and espying an overdosing dealer, he makes off with the mashed man's stash and cash in opportunistic dash. Mate, you've misunderstood rave culture, albeit in a manner congruent with Game's steadfastly delicious misanthropy.
He is, simply, a cunt. And it's not just me who thinks this: cue the poacher we saw earlier (played by post-punk hunk Jason Williamson, a Sleaford Mod), who with his gorgeous German Shepard happens upon our hapless driver, all caught up in the seatbelt and metal crush, yet refuses to help him. The poacher cites that he's a "noisy cunt," one of those ravers who nause up the countryside (in fairness to him, I've never seen anyone fretting about tidying after themselves at these things, "man"). What follows is a kind of cat and mouse game, except the mouse is already caught and hobbled in the trap, and the cat persists to verbally torture him - stood outside the car door, trying to act like a gangster... The poacher won't be bought by David's ill-gotten gains, explaining that if he dies he can take it anyway: touché. You might expect a treatise on the mystical sanctity of nature (which would be supported by the film's vivid imagery), but Game is far too obstinate for such homilies. Both men are thieves, parasites of their environment, and naturally antagonistic. Via flashbacks, we find out that David is an outlier, estranged from his parents, and let's face it, far too old to be out with the kids at a rave: is Game a sly commentary on thwarted masculinity? Perhaps: I laughed out loud at the quotidian locations of the final scene, and its bleak, bathetic humour.
The para-Beckettian situation escalates when, at night, the gorgeous but viciously trained German Shepard comes up against David and his wind down window (TW: with this and the -disappointing- Frankenstein, 2025 is a bad year for canine trauma). How can David get out of this one? Well, there is the matter of the shit-ton of drugs he's stolen, and the bottle of orange juice the poacher has left juuuuusst out of his reach as a means of tormenting him... But why should we root for him, the film goads us? What intrigues most about Game is its moral un-equivalence: both of these guys are rotters, and, relieved of sentimental identifications, what we're left with is the refined elemental of a confined thriller, the bare bones of survivalism. With its singular visuals, (obviously) amazing soundtrack and perfidious tone, Game is a unique cinematic experience.
Game is in UK/ROI cinemas from November 21st.
