Fantasia 2017: ‘TILT’ Review

Sorry, Ryan Murphy, but Kasra Farahani beat you to the punch with this politically charged thriller Tilt. What I’m betting is that American Horror Story: Cult will produce something at least a little more “fun” that what we got here. This movie, admittedly, may not be for me; I’m not a political person to speak of. I don’t follow the news on a daily basis, I avoid my Twitter feed, and I don’t get engrossed in the political world as if the “he said, she said” is even remotely entertaining or important to my life. I stay in my lane of knowledge, and I’m comfortable and happy — judge if you like, but at least I know my place. Here’s the thing: I understand the obsession because I share it with other topics and hobbies, I just don’t share it with politics. There are others who just…can’t get enough. The chaos consumes.

Joseph Burns (Joseph Cross) is a documentary film maker who made a pinball doc 4 years prior called, aptly, Tilt. His wife Joanne (Alexia Rasmussen) is supportive to a degree, but with talk of starting a family and through friends’ discussions she’s growing less patient. Joseph is working on a follow-up documentary, something political, while watching the election coverage and getting angrier and angrier. Joanne asks him, “if you hate this guy so much, why are we always watching him?” Maybe it’s Joseph’s break of reality. He’s having terrible nightmares, and he’s going out at night and getting into strange situations without an ending. The ending of the situations may   be violent. Joseph is losing it.

Controlling the chaos is the major theme of the movie, something that Joseph talks about in a clip from Tilt that we see towards the end of the film. The fact that the term tilt in relation to pinball machines means to rock or shake also lends some info as to what’s going on in Joseph’s head. To what end, I have no clue. I really, really liked Farahani’s first directorial feature, 2016’s The Good Neighbor. His skillful touch is absolutely on display with Tilt. Camera movement, framing, lighting, and the look of the movie is all very well done. The substance is just lacking, and that’s where it falls through as a feature. I had difficulty following what was transpiring and/or what it cumulatively means, if anything. The film hops from scene to scene with no real sense of time, confusing any sense of reality we desperately need in order to grasp where we actually are in the story.

There were a few moments of shock in here that gave me pause to reflect on if it swayed me on the movie one way or another. While I still remember those vividly, I wasn’t attached enough to really let it get to me.Tilt is a very, very dark film. It reflects the bleak outlook a lot of the world possesses right now, and I respect it for just going there. Unfortunately, it feels like it’s just as pointless and endless as the political world is to me. I’m also torn with how horribly it ends because I was so wowed and yet left with this empty feeling of “why,” and no answers. There’s just not enough focus in order for things to become meaningful. There’s nothing to hold onto in order to care. More than anything, Tilt‘s frustrating…and maybe that’s the point.