Convinced that her "ugly cry" is costing her roles, a young actress takes extreme measures to improve her looks.
Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Emily Robinson
Starring: Emily Robinson, Robin Tunney, Ryan Simpkins, Aaron Domínguez
In the manner of fellow indies Starry Eyes and Somnium, writer/director Emily Robinson's feature debut Ugly Cry follows a young actress whose desire to make it in Hollywood leads her to take drastic measures. This one also overlaps with the recent wave of female-driven movies that have used body horror to examine society's obsession with impossible beauty standards.
Most of those films are centred on women who are losing a battle with time, but Delaney, the protagonist of Robinson's film has time and looks on her side. Played by Robinson herself, Delaney is a beautiful 24-year-old with the sort of looks to which most of us can only aspire. She's closer to the Margaret Qualley version of the protagonist of The Substance than to Demi Moore's aging star. But send the best looking person in your town to Hollywood and they'll suddenly find themselves riddled with insecurity, as is the case with Delaney.
After failing to receive a call back from an audition she believes she aced, Delaney becomes obsessed with the idea that she lost the part due to her "ugly cry." Whether it's what the filmmakers actually demanded or not is left ambiguous, but Delaney convinces herself that she needs to be able to pull off an emotional crying scene while keeping her pretty looks intact. In her mind, any wrinkling of her forehead or loosening of her jawline is detrimental.
Delaney's insecurity is also heightened by being surrounded by a particularly terrible support network. Her condescending mother (Robin Tunney) is always passive aggressively suggesting that her daughter may not be cut out for stardom. Her boyfriend (Aaron Dominguez) recently cheated on her, and his own acting career is taking off while Delaney's stalls. Her best friend (Ryan Simpkins) auditions for the roles Delaney desires behind her back.
Opening with an awkward acting class interaction, Ugly Cry appears at first to be a comedy about making it (or not) in the cut-throat world of Hollywood, and it is certainly an industry satire to some degree. Robinson has been acting and modelling since childhood, and this is clearly a world with which she is all too familiar. Small moments, like how Delaney sizes up rival starlets in reception areas and the messiness of trying to get your mother to read lines with you will likely prove relatable for anyone in Delaney's position.
But the comedy soon takes a back seat as the film enters psychological thriller and eventually body horror territory. Delaney makes a series of bad and potentially dangerous decisions in her quest for perfection. We're all familiar with cringe comedy, but this is cringe horror. Watching a perfectly beautiful young woman destroy herself both physically and psychologically over 90 minutes is a deeply uncomfortable experience that will have you silently screaming at Delaney for her misguided choices. And if you're afraid of needles you'll want to cover your eyes during a particularly gruelling self-administered Botox sequence.
The film's convincingly organic shift from comedy to horror is largely down to Robinson's central performance. We start the movie laughing with Delaney, only to end it crying for her. As tragi-comic heroines go, Delaney is ultimately more tragic than comic. Robinson wins us over initially with her bubbly personality, but we eventually grow both scared for and of her. There is something of Catherine Deneuve's Repulsion protagonist in Delaney, but here Delaney is repulsed by herself. To borrow current online vernacular, every time she looks in the mirror, Delaney mogs her reflection.
Much of Robinson's performance involves her self-taping or auditioning as Delaney, who begins to lose grip on reality, quoting the lines she's rehearsed in real life situations. On a meta-level, Robinson has made her own elaborate showreel with her directorial debut, one that convincingly demonstrates her impressive emotional range. As an actress, this will surely lead to call backs for Robinson, but her work behind the camera displays an august maturity for such a young filmmaker. Eschewing any visual tricks or effects, Robinson externalises the fractured state of Delaney's mind as reality and unfulfilled dreams blend together like a napper's nightmare. It all leads to an intensely cruel denouement and a gut punch of a final fade-out.
