Felt (2015)
Starring Amy Everson, Kentucker Audley, Ryan Creighton
Directed by Jason Banker
I’ve reviewed plenty of films in the past that have covered from end to end the whole “woman scorned” premise, and for the most part, they can be a little frightening. While in the majority of some of these movies we never truly get to see the spinning cogs of the damaged female mind, and why it commits the atrocities it does – that is until Jason Banker’s Felt had completed its 80-minute dive into a fractured psyche…and it was frightening to behold.
Based upon the true experiences of lead actress Amy Everson (playing herself) – we focus in on a woman who simply wants to hurt men – her mind is not at ease, and as a result of some fairly heavy trauma incurred from the male species, she is a soul that appears innocent and reserved on the outer core, but once a peek behind the veil is offered, we see a side of a woman that is primal, abhorrent, and simply terrifying to think could reside inside one’s mind. Her pastimes include making (and wearing) male-specific spandex suits (complete with genitalia), and wearing it at different locations – parties, cemeteries, and deep in the woods. Her friends try in vain to set her up with dates, but they’re usually to no avail, and with each passing day, her festering troubled past is metastasizing like a tumor of hatred, and this thing is going to explode.
After a short while, Amy becomes enamored with a new fella, Kenny (Audley), and while some could look at this potential relationship as a fortuitous leap in the right direction for our tortured personage, deep down we’ve all got to realize where this one is heading, and it doesn’t look good. As we witness the remainder of the film, it’s clear to any set of working eyes that this union is going to take a turn that won’t soon be forgotten, and interspliced with artsy-surreal sequences that will have you scratching your brain-bucket makes it even more eerie in its presentation. I don’t consider myself a trained eye by any stretch when it comes to dissecting a film down to the bone, but even through this movie’s mental-diversion tactics, I could forsee the end result from a mile away, although that didn’t make it any easier to watch, or comprehend for that matter.
Everson’s performance is simply disheartening – you can see the exoteric layers of innocence lost, and once they’re peeled away, the internal workings are as ruined as a patchwork-rig of circuitry that’s been slapped together by a novice electrician – there’s a whole lot of sparking going on, but don’t dare get near it, as the results will be extremely painful. Banker does a fantastic job of giving the audience a crystal-clear view of anguish in its purest form, and how someone buries the sentiments until the pressure becomes far too much to conceal. This is one that needs to be checked out, and while you won’t get blown away with action and gore, you’ll get that uneasy feeling in your gut for quite a while after the end credits have rolled.
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Film
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