SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL: A day goes from bad to worse for an unsuspecting Everyman in the black-hearted, light-headed bummer, Cheap Thrills. Finding its basis for humour in the subjective humiliation of two down-on their-luck nobodies, EL Katz’s directorial debut keeps tightening the screws on audience expectation, and the result is a grotesquely uncomfortable but stylishly realised viewing experience.
The overall impact of the satire is muted.
The day could not start more sweetly for new dad, Craig (Pat Healy); the film opens on an amorous pre-alarm grope session with his pretty wife, Audrey (Amanda Fuller). However, the wail of his newborn son begins a downward spiral of events; Audrey presses him for that job promotion, an eviction notice gets pinned to their door, he loses his job and, finally, he reunites with childhood buddy Vince (Ethan Embry), now a petty collection thug, in a seedy bar.
Soon, Craig and Vince are in the company of brash, cashed-up personality Colin (a terrific David Koechner) and his hot, much younger, largely silent wife Violet (Sara Paxton), downing tequila shots and partaking in cheeky stunts to earn $20 here, $40 there. Back at Colin’s home, the stakes get higher; first to defecate in the neighbour’s home, first to self-mutilate, first to eat"¦well, you get the idea.
The absurdity of the situation and the fecklessness of the two men strain the credibility of the premise more than once. The pair’s willingness to continually indulge in degrading acts for cash is almost explained away by their dire blue-collar situations and some pat psychologising about the lost dreams of their youth, but Vince and Craig need not hang around (a view some audience members may take when the challenges get particularly stomach-churning).
At its best, Cheap Thrills recalls some of the more uncomfortable metaphorical explorations of class and social imbalance of recent times, notably both versions of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games and Stacy Title’s little-seen 1995 cult item, The Last Supper. But it pales next to last year’s low-budget Canadian black-comedy, Mon Ami, in which writer-director Rob Grant explored, with an equally fearless approach to corporeal humour, the extent to which a couple of dead-end no-hopers would go to get a break.
Though the overall impact of the satire is muted, there are a number of effective individual scenes. Katz and his screenwriters David Chirchirillo and Trent Haaga are all feature debutantes who exhibit a solid understanding of their genre craft, especially notable as much of the film takes place in two single-location settings.
Similarly, the B-list cast all step up and gamely fulfil both the gruelling mental and physical demands of their parts. Anyone who saw Pat Healy’s revolting villain in last year’s icky Compliance may not mind the torturous path his character takes, though Craig is an empathic frontman for his director’s aims; former teen-star Embry (Empire Records; That Thing You Do!) is unrecognisable as the bearded tough-guy, Vince; Koechner and Paxton (reuniting with Healy, with whom she co-starred in Ti West’s The Innkeepers) make for an ambiguously edgy personification of wealthy America and its contemptuous exploitation of the underpriveliged.
A textbook case of a film that never quite amounts to the sum of its parts, Cheap Thrills is still more than its title suggests and provides dark entertainment for those in the mood.
