Worth: $10.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Mason McNulty, Rahm Braslaw, Jake Head, Christian Drerup, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Charlyne Yi, Thomas Lennon
Intro:
A curiosity for those who like to dive in and dissect meaning, but you’ll ultimately end up wallowing in shallow waters.
VHYes is the directorial debut from Jack Henry Robbins and is ostensibly the found footage answer to the sketch show. Shot entirely on VHS and Betacam, the film starts on Christmas Day 1987 and young Ralph (Mason McNulty) has just been given a camcorder. Feeling elated, he makes it his holiday resolution to create the world’s greatest video playlist. Everyone has to have a dream, eh?
After discovering that he can use his camcorder to record television programs, Ralph stays up late to record his nocturnal-channel-hopping for his best friend, Josh (Rahm Braslaw). It’s this ADHD flicking that makes up the bulk of VHYes, as we skip from one spoof TV show to another. There’s the shopping channel selling household goods that are clearly drug paraphernalia; a high brow arts program that shows porn movies with the pretence that they contain weighty environmental messages; and an Antiques Roadshow knock off where its host simply tries to guess the purpose of the things he’s been shown. Cameos include the likes of Charlyne Yi (Paper Heart), Thomas Lennon (Reno 911!) and even the director’s own parents, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins.
While the hit to miss ratio is not in the audience’s favour, it could be argued that the sketches fly by so quickly that you shouldn’t worry too much. However, even at only 70 minutes, VHYes is a patience tester. There is just simply too much going on.
As the film hits its halfway mark, Robbins offers up the heart and mind of the piece. When Ralph isn’t taping his TV, he’s inadvertently recording his parents (Jake Head and Christian Drerup) arguing. He even catches his dad at the cinema with a woman that is not his mum. They’re only glimpses of a problem, but it’s heavily suggested that Ralph’s golden years with his parents are coming to an end. The fact that he’s also accidentally taping over their wedding video seems to underline the tragedy of their failed marriage.
From here, the sketches begin to snowball into each other, and our own 2020 problems get caught in the chaos. Robbins seems to be suggesting that our love for nostalgia is blinding us to the real issues facing us here and now. While there’s nothing inherently with the topic, it’s the execution that does the damage. A humourless professor is interviewed about VHS addiction and prophesies a world where we’ll have smaller VCRs in our pockets and will record our every moment on them. We’ll be so busy cultivating our image, our memories will be irreversibly altered, and we will elect celebrities as President. It’s all just a little too on the nose to be genuinely ground-breaking, and the film’s final message is lost in a literal sea of videotape and Lynchian surrealism.
Robbins has perfectly captured that late-night rush of early cable television and it will likely appeal to a particular demographic. It’s just unfortunate that VHYes feels like it would make more impact if it was a short rather than having its point stretched out. A curiosity for those who like to dive in and dissect meaning, but you’ll ultimately end up wallowing in shallow waters.
