Not long ago, Netflix released a trailer for a film starring Alison Brie, titled Horse Girl. The footage that I saw in that trailer certainly intrigued me so I put it on my list of movies to see at Sundance, which is where the film premiered.
Horse Girl is definitely one of the strangest movies I’ve seen this year at the film festival. It ended up being a crazy mixed bag of nuts. Alison Brie plays a quiet young woman named Sarah who lives a simple life working in a fabric store and watching her favorite TV show. As she is living that life strange things start to happen to her. She starts sleepwalking, having insane lucid dreams, and ends up waking up in places she doesn’t recall going too.
As the story goes on she comes to believe that she is being abducted by aliens and that she is a clone of her grandmother. As you might expect everyone around her thinks she’s going completely crazy. But, is she?!
The reason I say that the film is a mixed bag of nuts is because it’s a psychological thriller that is unexpectedly quirky and funny. It’s also a dramatic film that has some unsettling eerie moments. The movie was kinda all over the place and it felt schizophrenic, which may have been intentional due to the main character having what seems to be a psychotic mental breakdown.
It’s kind of a frustrating movie to watch because I really enjoyed certain moments in the film and I didn’t care for some of the other creative choices. Some moments just didn’t make any sense, and there were certain scenes that weren’t pertinent to the story. A half hour could have easily been cut out of the film to tighten it up and make it flow better.
In the end, the movie was fine. It wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be, but I’m sure that there’s an audience out there that will enjoy and appreciate it.
I should point out that Brie Larson did give a fantastic performance! She’s proved that she can play a crazy person. I think that there’s a better movie in there somewhere, it just needs some tightening up.
Here’s the synopsis:
Sarah (Alison Brie) has a quiet and fairly simple life, contenting herself with the crafts-store job she holds, the nightly supernatural crime TV show she adores, and the equestrian center she visits constantly. When a gift impulsively stirs her curiosity about her family history, unexpected and strange dreams begin to disturb her. As these visions seep into her waking moments, Sarah struggles to hold on to her fragile reality.
Director Jeff Baena (Life After Beth, Joshy, The Little Hours) returns to the Sundance Film Festival with his fourth feature, diving into an incredibly personal and unusual new realm while retaining his trademark aptitude for character exploration and unsettling humor. A stellar supporting cast underlines Brie’s remarkable lead performance, including turns by Molly Shannon, Debby Ryan, and John Reynolds. Born out of a close collaboration between Baena and Brie, who co-wrote and produced the film, Horse Girl looks at the tenuous grasp we have on waking life through a bold and disquieting character study.
