It's a strange and unclassifiable film, avoiding any clear categorization in a manner that's reflexively communicated in an early scene where Holbrook sits down with an astronaut at his magazine press. The astronaut wants Holbrook to produce an article about the overwhelming experience of vitality the spaceman had on his otherworldly adventure, and Holbrook cynically responds that no medium we have could ever express such a sensation. That seems to be the ethos here, both in the themes of the film and the approach by the filmmaker: That agitation of overwhelming stimuli that numbs us as we face our existential crises, born from life failing to meet the expectations of our various desires and needs. Just like Holbrook and his magazine are impotent to vocalize these dense feelings, the film's grammar doesn't even attempt to rise from its languid energy. The film is fatigued at the task of contending with life on life's terms, just like its protagonist. We're clinically blended with his subjectivity- as Holbrook's perspective is that two people must engage together for meaning to occur, discounting the astronaut's meaningful story because it doesn't gel with Holbrook's definition of meaning being one that thwarts his loneliness. This isn't something the filmmaker necessarily shares, but it rather feels transparently placed to exhibit the skewed outlook infected from mental health deterioration. Whether or not viewers will be able to endure this film and come out the other side with a positive review depends on their ability to appreciate films that are so aggressively alienating. I fall somewhere in the middle- it's an interesting movie but one that stumbles and potentially fails to abide by its own logic by the end.
The film's greatest strength is in how it simultaneously beats us and Holbrook down with the fatalistically tragedy of his inability to articulate suburban malaise. However, the final act boils things down from the fantasies of Holbrook's exit from life into the banality of life's muck, and then frustratingly engages in some conversations where these ideas are articulated with a degree of simplified pronouncement and obnoxious TV-movie didacticism. At the other end of this incredibly depressing film is a somewhat inspiring revelation that -despite not having answers, or being so powerless over our pleas to avoid being flooded by the stimuli of life- when we come together intimately with another person who is willing to engage us on that level, we can become liberated with a lucidity around the actual reduced size of our problems.. Then the film reverts back into nihilistic terrain from inherent disconnect, a gravity far stronger than any hope could ever produce, and it's an even more unsettling ending because of the elision between the final speech and the written denouement. This is itself a sick joke, likely a wink at all the preceding talk of how printed information cannot illuminate all the complexity of experience occurring intangibly and desperately in the margins of our psychological space and in the vacuity of our souls. So maybe this undercuts the didacticism and renders it as a pathetic TV movie after all. Maybe it's brilliant for its follow-through on the pump-fake of its unevenness' mirage. I'll have to see it again to diagnose, but I'm not sure if I can stomach another go of this film any time soon. Recommended with hesitation- you have to be in the mood for this one, and it might ruin your day anyways!
