Natural Selection (Saturday, March 17, 2012) (29)

There is a single brilliant shot in Robbie Pickering's Natural Selection and it comes in the first minute of the film. We see the grass collection bag for industrial lawn mower slowly open and a man emerge gradually, fall on the ground and then raise up to his feet. There is some suggestion that this is some sort of birth, or a rebirth, but that's the end of the symbolic or thematic interest in the movie. Sadly, this one shot is the last interesting element of the film, and it devolves into stupid and recycled, unbelievable garbage after.

Writing a punchy short movie is a much harder skill than one might think, and Pickering does a terrible job with his script. It's packed with tons of excess shit that leads nowhere and comes off mostly as cloyingly cutesy or strangely judgmental (that is, LA people judging the middle part of the country).

Linda (Rachel Harris) is a middle-aged woman married to a bible thumping middle aged man. She is unable to have a baby, so they decide that, following the story of Onan in the Book of Genesis, they won't have sex -- because sex not for the purpose of reproduction is sinful. Regardless of this, Linda wakes up and tried to have sex with her husband... even though the answer has been 'no' for twenty-some years no. Dumb.

But then he has a sudden heart attack in the office of his sperm bank (the definition of "spilling his seed") and Linda has to deal with the reality of their marriage being based on lies of celibacy and his seemingly imminent death after his emergency.

To help her get in contact with her feelings, she searches out one of the children he fathered through the bank. She tracks him down in a terrible drug-addled state and convinces him to go back to visit his father in the hospital by his deathbed. He's all too willing to go along as he's trying to get out of town before he's arrested for escaping jail (see: the man escaping jail by hiding inside a lawnmower bag in the first scene).

This story is the definition of "convoluted". The plot weaves around and back on itself more times that we can count and every decision each character makes has no basis in natural life, but is forced by a clumsy writer (deus-ex-lawnmower-bag).

Harris is pretty good in the role, but I can't help but feel that she's cynically laughing at her character rather than playing her with any sort of respect. (She might say she's respectful of the character, but she seems to overdo it frequently enough that it comes off as a bit mean.) When the story goes from exaggerated to ridiculous (in the last 20 minutes), she all but vanishes, as the silliness of the narrative distracts from any sympathetic moments she might act.

This movie represents to me all that is wrong with the non-studio Hollywood. It's absolutely respectable that this movie was made for almost no money and was written and directed by a newcomer with only one semi-star attached to it. But it's ridiculous that it was even made in the first place. It's an absurd story that has a rather condescending tone (I think Pickering is from the South where the story is set) that shows foolish religious people to be foolish because of their religion. Hollywood liberals indeed. This is a dull and stupid movie that should be mocked rather than appreciated.

Stars: .5 of 4