Proxy (2014)

Memorable, crazy movie

Great Film overall

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

How come no one brought up the fact that the husband murdered someone in the basement! He grabs the girl outta the tub then tortures her in the basement. It's never brought up by anyone like we're all just gonna ignore the fact that it happened

Everything about this movie is awesome... Except for the movie. It's such a cool idea for a story! The flawed and deeply scarred characters who make up the movie are awesome. It boggles my mind how a director could take such rich material and fumble it as badly as mr. Parker did. Try as I might I cannot come up with any words that will adequately explain how frustrating this movie turned out. It's such an awesome movie the premise the characters everything about it is like epic or should've been! But the director manages to ruin every thing. Quite the opposite of King Midas I imagine that if you handed Zack Parker a pile of gold which is exactly what this movie was he will turn it into a steaming pile of poop.it's a bummer because this movie SHOULD be amazing

Spoilers included here. Im Reviewing another Indiana movie. (Im from Indiana and think its cool that some Indie movies are being made here and getting exposure) This was great to be a low budget Indie. I'd love to know the budget on this. Watched this on netflix a few months ago. Good story. Very slow pacing but that was intentional I believe. Definitely a nod to "Psycho" with the Hitchcock feel, the main character being killed in the middle of the movie. And in the shower no less. Well bathtub. That scene was crazy and almost comical. But really good. If that makes sense. Second half of the movie did drag a bit and got less plausible as it went along. I really didn't buy the lesbian lover character at all. I think as a viewer I'm supposed to think "wow these are some messed up twisted people" and they were. Overall, pretty decent. Not a cookie cutter movie at all. Certainly worth a watch. There's FAR worse on Netflix.

I didn't even know this movie existed until it was briefly reviewed by Red Letter Media. I was so intrigued by their review that I figured I'd give it a shot myself. Here are my impressions: This movies has a very distinct flavor to it that I can't quite put my finger on. There are rarely movies where I experience a genuinely eerie atmosphere throughout the length of the film ; this is one of those movies. It reminded me of the recent "Enemy" in that regards - doing a very good job in using the music, script, and cinematography to create an overall disturbing feel. However, I sometimes found a conflict in atmospheres. Whereas in Enemy, it is obviously meant to be a serious drama throughout the film, I could not tell if Proxy was trying to communicate an entirely serious drama (in which case it failed), a black comedy (in which case it at times succeeded), or if it was going for that Tim Burton vibe where the two are mixed together for their own distinct oddity. I'm gathering that it was probably the latter.I spend so much time saying that because it is very much an atmospheric movie. The character arcs are not overly complicated and once you understand their motivations, everything they do falls into place and makes sense. The movie itself is more a matter of piecing everything together to understand what those motivations are and how they can lead to almost amusingly pitiful and tragic events. The black comedy aspect in it might be entirely something I'm seeing alone - and I say that only because sometimes the actresses were going way over the top! I could not tell if they were purposely acting poorly at times or if they really wanted to come across as that comically insane or stereotypical. If it was purposeful, then I'm convinced it was meant to be a darker irony. If it was not, then there could have been some major improvements to the performances (hence the 6 out of 10). In any case - the secondary characters, passing doctors and teachers, etc, they without a doubt are questionably poor actors. Some could argue that maybe it was the script itself, and that they had bad material to work with? However, I am not convinced, as I felt a good portion of the script was conceivable and the portions that were less likely to occur could be passed off as a maniac rant or a stylistic soliloquy from the writers.However, I am gathering this was a lower budget film that, due to its edgier content, had a hard time attracting talent. For that, I commend the director for filming competently with what he had. Were some of these characters and plot points done before? Perhaps - but look at any movie. They're all derived from each other. In terms of originality, this is actually a breath of fresh air. Regarding the common complaints: edginess for the sake of edginess; accusations of misogyny; and seemingly flat characters. For the first one, I felt the entire point of the genre of this movie is to deal with and face the existence of edgy and dark content, so that complaint is null and void to me (though there was a bit of non-plot-developing sex scenes/implications involved). For the accusations of misogyny, I can understand where that complaint is coming from. You have a couple crazy women and then a highly cookie-cutter lesbian, but I have no particular complaints. If you go to any segment of society, there are people who are attracted to and abide by certain stereotypes. It just so happened that one character fell into that segment. Could Anika have been more of a person and less of a stereotype? Absolutely - I agree. But she wasn't a major character, so I won't nag. Otherwise, I don't see why the existence of insanity in female characters must thereby mean that the director/writer was trying to say all women are crazy. I just saw it as capturing the story of characters who happened to be women. The cast is overwhelmingly female (from the social worker, to the doctors, to the detective) - all of whom seem to be normal, average, sane ladies. So I don't see much of anything in the story saying "all women are nuts." Nope - just "all these women are normal - oh and here's a story about two characters who are nuts that are women." (However, I should say that I do agree that not all the dialogue seems entirely genuine to females specifically - but I felt it was appropriate for the characters themselves, regardless of gender, most of the time.) Lastly, as previously mentioned, some characters seemed rather flat. Their arc was limited and they experienced little development or fell very quickly into a trope. I'd have to unfortunately say that is true. Their depth is not in the complexity of their humanity - its more in the complexity of exploring their insanity. So the characters don't develop or change much as beings, but rather we get to see the consequences of the characters that they already are. And since they're pretty colorful as it is, I have no complaints.Conclusion? An ambitious film that did well with what it could and had some clever ideas about how to communicate a variety of well-hidden twists. I enjoyed it. But it is absolutely not for everyone. I'm curious about Mr. Parker's work now! I hope to see whatever he makes next if he's able to obtain a larger budget.Peace.