Review: Gazer – “a total gem of an Indie film.”

Directed by Ryan J Sloan,
Starring Ariella Mastroianni, Renee Gagner, Jack Alberts, Marianne Goodell

Sometimes, when you get sent a press release for a movie that you otherwise know nothing about, it just pings your film radar. Gazer did that with me, and I’ve learned to listen to that intuition – I am glad to say that, yet agai,n that ineffable vibe you sometimes just get for certain works has again steered me to a total gem of an Indie film.

Frankie (Ariella Mastroianni), who also co-writes the film, is the main character, and she plays Frankie beautifully, giving us hints of the inner anguish and turmoil through small movements and expressions (the camera often lingering on her face in close-ups, as if pushing the viewer to see the world from her perspective), a person who seems fairly quiet, introspective, but you can feel the tension within, radiating from her (kudos to Mastroianni’s acting chops here).

Frankie has dyschronometria and some other degenerative neural impairments – one aspect of this is that she can easily “zone out” and lose track of passing time, totally missing minutes, hours or more. Bright screens inflame her neurological condition, so her low-tech, analogue tech fix is to use an old-school Walkman and a series of specially recorded audio cassettes to help her focus (with labels like “work”, “going to the doctor”, etc). Like the protagonist of Baby Driver, she always has her earphones plugged in, but it isn’t hot beats to fight tinnitus, it’s her voice telling her to focus, to look around, alerting her to how long is left on the tape.

Another coping mechanism is looking around her and trying to observe things closely – a low-rise apartment block opposite her work in a petrol station is a good candidate, letting her watch people passing in front of their apartment windows. However, when she thinks she sees something untoward happen through one window, it will lead to more trouble for her when one of the inhabitants, Paige (Renee Gagner) sees her and follows her to a support group for those who have lost loved ones to suicide (Frankie’s husband is dead, but the flashbacks of her muddled mind leave us doubting if it was suicide or something else). Paige has a proposal for her, needing her help, but is she on the level, and even if she is, can Frankie actually help? Desperate for cash to see her young daughter again (now a ward of her mother-in-law) before her condition gets worse, she may have to go for this chance.

As you can imagine, this put me in mind of Guy Pearce’s character in the brilliant, early work from Christopher Nolan, Memento, and indeed Sloan’s film wears a number of its influences on its sleeve, but always in a way that doesn’t jar but simply works, adding to the atmosphere. In addition to Nolan, there are moments that nod to Lynch and even Cronenberg, while the film also had me thinking of other American Indie flicks I’ve loved, like Hal Hartley’s work. It really is seriously independent too – Sloan financed the tiny budget himself, and shot on 16mm in a grimy-looking New Jersey, and between that, Mastroianni’s performance, and the untrustworthy narrator approach, this is a highly compelling slice of excellent US Indie film-making. Highly recommended.

Gazer is in UK cinemas now.