If you have any trace of humanity, you hated Allison Williams in Get Out. Like Michael Myers, she’s pure evil — and if you haven’t seen that yet, it’s been out for almost two years, get on that. The trend of the former Girls star continues with The Perfection.
You’ll absolutely dread Williams but not before you fall in love with her, a true testament to her ability to play characters with a dirty sheen. There’s a series of waves of emotions like few else, as there’s deep sense of despair the audience can’t fully trust but is forced to feel a wave of empathy as she’s introduced at her mother’s deathbed.
She plays a former cello prodigy who looks for her former mentor (Steven Weber) who’s searching for his next star student in Shanghai. There, Williams also encounters the girl that followed in her footsteps once she left Weber’s institute to take care of her sick mother.
Williams initially pauses at Weber’s insistence she and Browning work together, but the two soon hit things off, painting the town a magnificent blue and yellow ending in a devilishly magnificent climax. Director Richard Shepard has shown his dark comedy chops in the past with Girls and Dom Hemingway but this sequence really hits a perfect pitch, opening the floodgates for what’s to come.
Deftly told through four chapters — or movements, rather — Shepard clearly strives to hit the perfection that Weber is obsessed with. At times, it’s rather messy: Narratively, figuratively, theologically, and literally. But if Shepard’s hand is a bit shaky, he turns to an inventive take to wipe the slate clean, virtually handing in a new copy of the movie while preserving what came before. Soon enough, he presents an American Handmaiden film, far removed from any audience aspirations of Whiplash.
It all begins to unravel as Williams and Browning go on a bus tour through China to escape the first class life they’ve lived under Weber. Telling anything more would be a disservice to the razor sharp turns that follow.
Watch this knowing as little as possible. But if you’re on the fence about watching a couple of dueling cellos, know it has more in common with Deliverance than A Late Quartet. Fantastic.
Now keep reading if you’re ready.
Surprisingly, The Perfection is cut from the same cloth as the latest Halloween which screened just hours before at Fantastic Fest. Both are clearly occupied with rising themes, seeking to skewer any preconceptions driven by female voices.
I can also confidently say this has to be the bloodiest cello-based movie of all-time. The bar is pretty low, but know that there are a few drops, pushing the audience further and further to the edge without ever jumping the shark. And if it does, it’s more than purposeful as a big gut punch, if not a damning punchline built off a searing 90 minutes.
This was screened just a week after Shepard finished in the editing room, so there may be more adjustments made to the sound mix and visual effects, so I can’t dock points from that yet. It did feel a little rough around the edges, but more than professional overall as it’s gorgeously shot by Vanja Cernjul who also filmed the lavish Crazy Rich Asians.
There’s certainly a through-line with his aesthetics, providing a religious angle that elevates the material to another level in conjunction with a fitting orchestral made all the more present with the cello montages Shepard produces. They really take a backseat to the story that develops between Williams and Browning, each completely investing themselves in their character and each other as they go through a wild wave of emotions influenced by the other. Weber is equally impressive playing against type, or at least against his years on Wings.
The perfect standards of the story’s male voice aren’t met but the sheer bravado Shepard shows is more than commendable. A movie with all the visual flourish of Brian De Palma only matched by its pulpy sensibilities. If nothing else, it’ll sit in your head hours after the credits. The more it sits, the better it gets. It’s been at the front of my mind as much as Annihilation earlier this year.
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