Dave and Andrew (David Hewlett and Andrew Miller) are best friends. They live together in a character three-storey house on a piece of waste ground between motorway fly-overs in Toronto. They are losers. Dave wants to move in with his girlfriend who uses him to embezzle company money. Andrew has agoraphobia, works from home as an internet travel agent and gets accused of being a child molester by an upset girl scout. The house is about to be demolished. So far, so bad.
The authorities turn-up to the house, looking for child molesting embezzlers; armed with bulldozers. They lock themselves in and pray to be left alone. Suddenly... All goes quiet. They go outside. The universe is now a white empty (rather bouncy) void with just them and the house.
Three-quarters of the film is simply the exploration of the nothing (dressed as polar explorers) which reveals nothing. Followed by the realisation that they can remove things at will. They argue, shout and fight. Things start to disappear.
The disappointment I felt for this film was replaced with depression. The characters' interaction never gets beyond yelling and exasperation and are difficult to like. There's no sense of a progression in their relationship until the very end. There is no real journey of self-discovery. The problem is ironically, that nothing really happens for much of the film. The director and two leads wrote the film between them. Perhaps this is why it fails to develop into anything substantial.
If you enjoyed Vincenzo Natali's other films, you may feel let down too. It wants to be quirky and humourous and does succeed, but I wanted something more and just found tedium. There is an audience that will enjoy this film and perhaps it's you so don't overlook it. Music by Michael Andrews.
