Mr. K

Directed by Tallulah H. Schwab, Mr. K follows a traveling magician (Crispin Glover’s Mr. K) as he finds himself trapped within a larger-than-life and progressively bizarre hotel. Filmmaker Schwab, armed with her own screenplay, delivers an off-the-wall endeavor that fares relatively well within its intriguing, promising opening stretch, as the picture boasts, at its core, a typically eccentric (and entertaining) performance by Glover that goes a long way towards initially capturing the viewer’s attention and interest – with the impressive production design certainly perpetuating the stirring atmosphere. It’s clear, then, that Mr. K‘s downfall stems from an increasingly surreal narrative that grows less and less compelling (and more and more interminable) as time progresses, as Schwab slowly-but-surely stresses oddball elements to a degree that becomes nothing short of infuriating – with the lack of context and groundedness transforming the picture into about as endless an endeavor as one can easily recall (ie it’s all just so relentlessly quirky and weird). The anticlimactic finale does little to alleviate the hopelessly underwhelming and unwatchable vibe, ultimately, and it’s impossible, in the end, to label Mr. K as anything more than an experiment gone horribly, aggressively wrong.

* out of ****