I'm really glad I came across Silver Tongues, a cerebral little gem about the thin line between the games we play and the lives we lead. It starts out in a similar vein, we think, to La Ceremonie or Funny Games or the less interesting The Strangers. But it very very quickly moves into far more dangerous and original material as we watch the central couple flit from situation to situation making up stories and playing casually with life or death situations. It is less physically violent, but far more emotionally violent and cruel.
It's interesting that the film doesn't start with Gerry and Joan (and, honestly, I just had to look up those two characters' names) because, although they the entire film revolves around them, we really have no idea who they are or what they're trying to accomplish. Still, the main actors are riveting, which is significant, because how else could we possibly continue to alternately sympathise with and revile two such alternately sympathatheic and repulsive human beings and have it feel so consistently genuine. We know they are deceptive, but are, we, the audience, also being deceived? (Not so spoiler alert: yes, most likely.)
Lee Tergesen has the poor-man's Alexander Skarsgard look about him that make him perfect for the role of Gerry, a chameleon you'll both hate and pity, even as you marvel at his essentially bland form of evil. And Enid Graham is really striking as Joan, moving expertly from cruel to vulnerable to playful to What is going on here, Joan?!? She feels like a slightly grittier Laura Linney, and Oh! She played the creepy agent's mousy wife on Boardwalk Empire. She gives a gripping performance. I think it's fitting that both of these actors have the 'that guy' persona. We recognize them and we don't. We feel like we know something about them that we probably don't. We're willing to allow a certain kind of intimacy that may or may not be warranted.
This is director Simon Arthur's first feature, based on a short he directed a few years ago. The dialogue almost feels lifted from a stage play, with its economy and artifice of language. It fits nicely, though, with the the visual minimalism of the film, very quiet in its execution, watching Joan and Gerry along with the rest of us. But, it's clear by the end that Arthur has made some strong directoral choices, always giving his charactes the proper stage in which to play out their stories, and guiding us, the audience, to his desired conclusions all the while seeming dispassionate.
I'm thinking now, of the multiple (motif alert) escapes the characters make and how they're each framed to rationally draw a conclusion that turns out to be not so rational after all. How can you track what's rational when the context keeps changing? And that, too, is part of the game. It's a clever conceit. What happens when we play with what is real and what isn't real (like, say, watching/making a movie)? If it's a game, what's the end game? What does it mean for our actual lives? How do we escape? And is escape leaving or arrival, as one character (whom I also want to kiss) aptly puts it? Is fiction cruel or compassionate? What stories do we tell ourselves and others and how responsible are we for the consequences?
Four stars. Quiet and heady and devilishly enjoyable. A provocative meditation on identity and morality with a nice frosting of suburban ennui.
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