Run time: 110 mins
YouTube wunderkind Kane Parsons conjures creepy imagery in his liminal space feature debut.
It is the early 90s and Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a failed architect, self-hatingly managing an eerily vast discount furniture store. He goes to see his therapist, Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve), who is haunted by childhood memories of her abusive mother. One day in the store’s basement, Clark discovers a seemingly passable section of wall, through which he can walk to discover an infinitely vast secret network of, you guessed it, backrooms. As he winds his way through the space, more doors lead to more halls and yellow rooms — where objects that should be situated firmly on the ground defy gravitational logic and sometimes appear to be growing out of the ceilings and walls.
When Mary follows her missing patient, she is troubled by memories of her recently demolished childhood home even as endless partitions, walls, stairs, doors and ceilings blur the distinction between agoraphobia and claustrophobia.
Parsons’ vision of the eponymous location, rendered here in magnificent, sprawling detail is a (creepy) sight to behold; the creative freakiness of the set design keeps things appropriately disquieting.