Dark Horse

A typically ineffective effort from Todd Solondz, Dark Horse follows Jordan Gelber’s Abe, a thirtysomething slacker who still lives with his parents, as he aggressively pursues Selma Blair’s emotionally-damaged Miranda. There’s little doubt that Dark Horse fares best in its opening stretch, as writer/director Solondz has infused the film with a low-key character-study vibe that is, for the most part, awfully difficult to resist – with the watchable vibe heightened by Gelber’s impressively convincing turn as the film’s unlikable protagonist (ie one doesn’t typically encounter a central character this obnoxious). Solondz’s decision to, in the movie’s early stages, tone down his trademarked quirk certainly plays a key role in Dark Horse‘s initial success, although, unfortunately, the filmmaker can’t quite resist throwing in a few eye-rollingly distracting elements (eg the Toys “R” Us logo is bafflingly blurred out). Alas, Solondz’s refusal (or inability) to tell a simple, straight-forward story grows more and more problematic as the movie progresses – as Solondz blurs the line between reality and Abe’s fantasies to an increasingly distressing degree. It ultimately becomes difficult to comfortably figure out what’s actually happening and what’s merely in Abe’s mind, which, when coupled with the narrative’s almost criminal lack of momentum, slowly-but-surely transforms Dark Horse into an excessively irrelevant piece of work.

*1/2 out of ****