Ex-pat Josh Lawson puts Hollywood on notice with his compelling performance as a crime scene photographer in director Charles de Lauzirika’s disturbing, blackly comic peek inside a dissociative mind.
Lawson drives the film with a vivid portrait
Living a loner’s life in one of Detroit’s seedier neighbourhoods, Aiden (Lawson) longs to make a heroic difference in the world, fantasising about ridding the subway of punks or hushing obnoxious blowhards at AA meetings (in just two of the more violent fantasy sequences). Co-scripting with Robert Lawton (Sex & Sushi), de Lauzirika’s debut undeniably borrows some of his film’s strongest moments from Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. Aiden dreams of wooing his lovely neighbour, Virginia (fellow Aussie Emma Lung), from the front seat of his car, recalling De Niro’s Travis watching Cybill Shepherd’s Betsy; and like Travis, he’s on hand when a convenience store robbery goes bad. Aiden also fails to see how his wall of gruesome murder shots may offend Virginia, in much the same way Travis could not comprehend why a Swedish hardcore flick may disturb Betsy. There’s even a reworking of the iconic 'You talkin’ to me"¦?’ moment. The Crave team have jettisoned the Jodie Foster character, but Harvey Keitel’s sleazy hustler 'Sport’ lives on in Edward Furlong’s bullying boyfriend, Ravi. Even the film’s one-sheet bares a striking resemblance to Taxi Driver’s.
Naturally, it’s not ideal that the film is such a blatant 'reinterpretation’, but Crave does find its own pulse with some very dark humour, aided by the solid chemistry between the cast. Lung, cagey about Aiden and not instantly open to his attention, commits to some lustful sex scenes that come to define the pair’s connection. And as Aiden’s best friend, jaded cop Pete, veteran actor Ron Perlman (perhaps best known as 'Hellboy’ in Guillermo del Toro’s fantasy epics) does some of his best work. But it’s Lawson, present for almost every scene and often called upon to pull off that most dangerous of devices, breaking the fourth wall, who drives the film with a vivid portrait of an everyman growing just that little bit crazier every day. Lawson makes certain Aiden is an engaging enough lead character, but one can’t help feel some degree of pity. It’s a star-making turn.
Impressively, de Lauzirika and DOP William Eubank (a newcomer to watch, after 2011’s stunning no-budget sci-fier, Love) punch well above their budget, technically, with the streets of the Motor City spectacularly lit and framed to convey Aiden’s increasingly unhinged connection to reality.
Crave is an often uncomfortable viewing experience, with each bad decision that Aiden makes and every setback he encounters representing a step closer to an anti-social explosion. The convoluted denouement doesn’t quite deliver on this sense of impending dread, though it does spin the film off into a psychologically ambiguous realm that also surprises. Putting aside the nagging sensation that you may have seen this type of character study before, Crave proves to be an impressive career-maker for all involved.
