by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $14.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Asia Kate Dillon, Louisa Krause, Ridley Asha Bateman, Lea DeLaria, Daniel K. Isaac
Intro:
… an emotional slow burn that may be lesser than the sum of its technically-impressive parts, but still offers a thoughtful perspective on the complexities of childhood trauma and existing while Queer.
Funded in part through the Scene In San Francisco rebate program, Outerlands works as a low-key tribute to the Golden City… but not by going with the obvious locales. This isn’t the kind of film that just uses the Golden Gate Bridge in every other establishing shot. Director Elena Oxman and DP Lucia Zavarcikova slither the camera away from the obvious tourist spots and instead take it through road tunnels, suburban vistas, and some particularly gorgeous shots of the coastline. This approach gives the film a more lived-in feel, like we’re seeing it all from a truly local perspective.
It’s a visual style that fits with the intimate core story, focusing on enby gig worker Cass (Asia Kate Dillon) as they find themselves taking care of eleven-year-old Ari (Ridley Asha Bateman) after her mother Kalli (Louisa Krause) abruptly leaves for a work opportunity. The performances are all highly watchable, from Dillon’s reserved but comforting presence to Bateman’s latchkey kid mannerisms, to Krause’s tightrope walk between how cute her and Dillon are together compared to how fraught her social existence turns out. They all do well with the potentially-tricky task of inhabiting characters where all the vital information exists outside of the words or even the frame itself at times.
While it occasionally mingles with Nomadland-adjacent commentary on the modern American economy and the drifting restlessness the gig economy often instils in its workers, Oxman’s script is ultimately about Cass coming to terms with their own childhood and the abandonment issues that resulted from it. The relationship between mothers and their children is a common thread throughout, but it’s with Cass that it’s at its most tense, showing them frequently trying to find escape through video games and alcohol to numb the… void that hurts to even recall being there, let alone looking directly at it.
It is here where the efforts of Lena Raine on the soundtrack brings things together. Her use of bit-crushed MIDI synths combined with stunning operatic vocal runs soaring over the top into a similar nostalgic vein as her work on games like Minecraft and Deltarune. The synths turn the film’s general fixation on old-school gaming into a sturdy thematic texture, as a soundscape for the want to find some connection with a time that feels like it was so much simpler than the now, and when answers seemed so much easier to grasp. While the vocals, especially against the San Fran backdrop, give it the feel of a place that is both holy, in the strictest definition of the word, but also achingly melancholic. Somewhere safe, yet daunting. When combined, they encapsulate the film’s entire mood, of the need to find shelter but still feeling held back by the ache of its absence. The feeling of trying to avoid the past for the hurt… but in the process losing sight of what was learnt from all those retries.
Outerlands is an emotional slow burn that may be lesser than the sum of its technically-impressive parts, but still offers a thoughtful perspective on the complexities of childhood trauma and existing while Queer. It also provides an interesting use of video game intertextuality that’s closer to the use of Shadow of the Colossus in Reign Over Me than just about any other example from the past decade, employing genuine emotional investment instead of the usual ‘hey, it’s that thing you’ve heard of’.
