Fantasia ’10 Review: ‘EVE’S NECKLACE’

We got another review from a member of the staff from Nightmare Revue, Michael Mitchell.  This review is being republished by permission from Jeremy Webster and Nightmare Revue.  Again, mucho kudos.

By Michael Mitchell

To get it out of the way, EVE’S NECKLACE, by Daniel Erickson, features the use of department store mannequins in place of actual actors…

The story, such as it is, centers around the happily married – though underfinanced – William and Eva as they prepare for the joyful arrival of an addition to their family. Enter: Ramon, a dangerous, dangerous man intimately connected to Eva and her sordid (that is, pornographic!) past, a past that she has kept secret from her husband… until now. To make it worse, Ramon is a dangerous, dangerous man who is demanding money – money that Eva just doesn’t have – to remain silent.

Erickson has been quoted stating that the use of mannequins over live actors arose out of economic necessity, that the production simply couldn’t afford a human cast, and that, after he had decided to go with the dummies he determined he would make no alterations to the script whatsoever. Pity. Perhaps the production couldn’t afford not to alter the script a little, in light of the limitations and limitless potential of the new cast. The limitations being that they are mannequins. The limitless potential being what the use of mannequins or masks or puppets has done since the beginnings of drama the world over: the ability to reflect us to us, through an imitation of what we are, all the while allowing us to constantly recognize that what we are witnessing is total illusion. Which is not done much better than in the first 3 ½ minutes of the 2004 film “Strings.” (“Strings” is a mythic fantasy that uses marionettes, with the fact that they are marionettes incorporated into the movie’s fictional universe. That is, the characters know they are puppets.) In those first 3 ½ minutes, we get to see human puppeteers in the rafters above the sound stage manipulating the puppet’s strings, one of the puppets commit suicide by severing his head-string and see puppet statues with their strings hanging useless and unusable towards the ground. In short: a vision of a complete alternate world.) But there be no strings attached in EVE’S NECKLACE.

One rule of thumb when creating a fantastical tale (and I’m not saying that there isn’t a race of talking mannequins on our fine planet somewhere) is that the crazier your set-up is, the more exact with the parameters you need to be. So, if you make a movie about mannequins and some of them can move their fingers but others can’t, that might be a problem. And we end up asking ourselves questions like “How did he get his car keys out of his pocket anyway?” or “How does she even open a bag of chips?” instead of following the narrative. Likewise, if you have a mannequin kid in a playground, there needs to be a very good reason why a real dog runs by him — which is exactly what happens in EVE’S NECKLACE. And once the questions start, you end up asking each other things like: “Why are the people plastic but their pets and food and clothes aren’t?”; “Why do some have real hair and others plastic hair?”; “Why do mannequins cry but not blink?” Drinking games are built on less.

Again, what the use of mannequins offers is a chance to explore limits not possible with real people. (That love scene in “Team America: World Police” comes to mind…) But what I watched seemed to me like something that could safely air at 9:00pm on a Sunday on a major network in the conservative heartland of America. Erickson has the camera cut away from any graphic details during the sex scenes (need I remind you that this is a movie about a former porn actress!) yet will show a head cracked open and mannequin brains all over the parking lot. We watch Eva lather her mannequin breasts with soap suds in one shower scene, but we dare not linger over her mannequin vagina. Dear Lord, and what would the consequences of a naked Barbie doll left on the floor be? An NC-17 rating? Are there even Barbies in mannequin world? Are they considered eerily life-like? I now know what mannequin blood and tears look like, just not any of their other fluids. (The nameless protagonist has sex, complete with bodily fluids, with a life-sized, animate wooden doll in Jan Švankmajer’s 1994 Czech film “Faust”—a truly unsettling view of Western society if ever there was one.)

Erickson also notes that he made sure to use mannequins with neutral expressions, so that they could convey a range of different emotions. Really? Like Ben Affleck does with his one expression? (The ancient Greeks, eschewing concerns over things like emotions, wore expressionless masks on stage so that they would not get caught up in the petty humans performing on stage, but stay focused on the grand religious myths that were being enacted before them. This way, they felt they were able to more readily participate in the performance, understand it, and integrate any illuminations generated by it into their daily lives.) And maybe Erickson’s plan sounds sound in theory, but in practice it ended up simply confusing the story. No one at the screening I attended could tell what anyone—sorry, anyquin was “feeling”—“Is Eva sad? Happy? Where’s Ramon looking? Is he looking?” With total lack of expression, the only way to tell what a character is feeling is by way of the vocal delivery of the voice actor. Which, to work, requires the best possible acting talent one can assemble. Sadly, I can’t say that Erickson has done that. The performers are definitely game and seem to have given themselves to the project, but I didn’t get the impression all of them were the best choices possible. When the physical component to acting is added in, a weaker talent can add anything from a personal tic or flourish or nuance and forge a stunning career regardless of any deficiencies in skill; but when all you have to go by is the voice, weaknesses are usually more pronounced. Specifically when the weaknesses are script related. Which is part of the problem with EVE’S NECKLACE. It would take a lot of talent to rise above the dialogue and script given to them. (Any commentary on the acting excludes John Hawkes, whose vocal performance, even more remarkable considering most of his lines sounded like they were written by a teenager, proves once and for all that he can act his way out of a plastic mannequin.) The dialogue is on a level where I wasn’t sure if it was bad on purpose or not. When hoary cliches are piled on top of even more cliches, you wonder if they’re intentional or not. And if not, why didn’t a kind soul point them out earlier in the process?

Using expressionless mannequins as a default comment on the superficial and empty lifestyle of suburban America doesn’t seem like enough, not when you see how scarily funny and scathing using mannequins with perma-grins can be, as is done in “The Fuccon Family.” And if your story wasn’t a comment on a soulless suburban existence before you decided to use mannequins, it won’t be after you do. (For instance, 1979’s “Tourist Trap” would not have worked at all without the use of dummies, as what they stood for was the point of the film from conception. Which can be efficiently summed up in a line from the classic Pulp song, “Common People”: “Cause everybody hates a tourist, especially one who thinks it’s all such a laugh.”) If using mannequins doesn’t add anything to the story, then they probably shouldn’t be because once the novelty wears off all they will eventually end up doing is taking away from it. The story, always, is all. And with EVE’S NECKLACE, the narrative just isn’t up to the challenge. The “woman with a past” storyline may not be as tired as the “husband thinks his best friend and wife are having an affair but they’re really just organizing a surprise birthday party” storyline, but it’s a very, very close second. We’re talking hundreths of a second second. A two-man bobsled second.

If this movie is indeed a comment on the soullessness of the suburbs (not that that even exists anymore), then where’s the anger and the desperation that such ennui can breed? What would it have meant if Eva’s woefully undersexed—but still holding out hope that her hubby will reignite one day—neighbour, Janis, had willingly – and expressionlessly! – taken a killer like Ramon to bed? After she had seen him kill someone, no less? Now that might have been a comment on the suburbs that I could get behind. (Actually, to give him all credit due, the young mannequin punk who Ramon killed took his impending death with total equanimity. Steeled, he was. Or stoned. Or confused. Or something else.)

It’s actually more saddening than confusing to see Erickson show as much restraint as he does. EVE’S NECKLACE may work on more than one level, but I suspect the subtext isn’t what Erickson thinks it is. The movie itself is what seems to be as uninspired and soulless as what he purports to be commenting upon. The only thing that stands out is the ending. One year after the fateful encounter, William and Eva are once again shown in their peaceful home, with a hearty, healthy baby in tow . . . and a brand-new spotless white-picket fence outside. Apparently, they have come through their ordeal on the other side; stronger, wealthier, more connected. As a commentary on the soulless, empty suburbs, this movie might be wanting, but as a commentary on the soulless, empty movie business, we might be on to something. All you need do is get past the meddling issue of funding and you’ll be home safe. If only.

But who knows? Maybe Erickson is already plugging away at EVE’S NECKLACE Part II: The Search for Foreign Distribution.