From our very first glance of Christopher Abbott's disturbed protagonist in Nicolas Pesce's Piercing, we know something is truly wrong. It looks like his mind is elsewhere, like he's stuck in a haunted trance that he can't escape. When his wife (Laia Costa) asks him to hold their newborn child for a moment, the baby says, "You know what you have to do," putting Reed in a near-hallucinatory, feverish state. In this playful, noir-ish landscape, Reed has one foot in an uneasy reality and the other in a hellish realm of violence and kinky sex. He wants to kill a prostitute in a last-ditch attempt to cleanse his fractured psyche, going so far as to craft a meticulous and painstakingly detailed plot in his head, but is he actually a killer?
Running a taut and brisk 81 minutes, Piercing essentially plays off the tension of Reed's core desire for the duration of its runtime. After getting a room at a posh hotel, he makes a call to Jackie (Mia Wasikowska), who only infrequently puts her services on the market. A bizarre interation ensues, and it seems like Reed's disgusting plan might be all for nothing. Then things get weird. Jackie stabs herself multiple times in the leg, prompting a quick trip to the hospital. After this inexplicable encounter, she even seems to imply that she... wants Reed to kill her? It sounds crazy- and since we're so tied up with Reed's nasty point-of-view, it probably is. But in a situation like this, is there anyone who can really be trusted?
So much of Piercing's odd allure comes from writer/director Pesce's ability to uncomfortably thrust us into Reed's position, to essentially tell a story from inside the mind of a deranged psychopath. In what is unquestionably the film's most stomach-churning sequence, Reed prepares for his murder by re-enacting exactly what he plans to do when push comes to shove. We're, mercifully, only shown his half-baked mimicry of the event, but the sound is so visceral, so gruesome; when you can hear the grisly details of a butchering, it still packs a punch.
In a necessary maneuver, the film manages to overcome its nastiness by blurring the lines between his internal state and external actions, providing the perfect foil in the equally unreliable Jackie. Played with a certain unpredictability by Wasikowska, you never get the sense that Jackie has many murderous tendencies- in fact, you never get the sense that she feels much of anything at all. It's absurd to think that Jackie actually wants to be murdered- it's the kind of idea that would only pop up in the brain of a crazy person- but Pesce's greatest trick is making it somewhat plausible in the twisted world of the film. We have enough distance to laugh at Reed's strange murder fantasy, yet it's nauseating all the same.
Adapting a novel by Ryû Murakami, Pesce injects so much raw style into the film that it'll prove to be irresistible for fans of the macabre and the dangerous. Even I couldn't help but crack a smile when Goblin's iconic music from Dario Argento's Deep Red kicked in at a key moment, underscoring Reed and Jackie's separate trips to the hotel with a certain kind of gaudy panache. And when drugs enter the picture in the final act, Piercing becomes a surreal spectacle of sexual nightmares and memories, all brought to the forefront in spectacular fashion.
Despite these impressive moments of cinematic flair, it's hard to find a whole lot of meat on Piercing's flashy bones. The film seems to be building toward a sickly satisfying joke at Reed's expense, which is a natural conclusion for such a nasty character. Still, in a story mostly built around characters awkwardly sitting in dour hotel rooms, it's almost a disappointingly slight payoff. This saga of S&M and murder is icky and appropriately unsettling, but it'll likely leave you wishing its feats of POV and style amounted to something more substantial in the end.
THE FINAL GRADE: B- (6.4/10)
Images: Universal/IMDb
Running a taut and brisk 81 minutes, Piercing essentially plays off the tension of Reed's core desire for the duration of its runtime. After getting a room at a posh hotel, he makes a call to Jackie (Mia Wasikowska), who only infrequently puts her services on the market. A bizarre interation ensues, and it seems like Reed's disgusting plan might be all for nothing. Then things get weird. Jackie stabs herself multiple times in the leg, prompting a quick trip to the hospital. After this inexplicable encounter, she even seems to imply that she... wants Reed to kill her? It sounds crazy- and since we're so tied up with Reed's nasty point-of-view, it probably is. But in a situation like this, is there anyone who can really be trusted?
So much of Piercing's odd allure comes from writer/director Pesce's ability to uncomfortably thrust us into Reed's position, to essentially tell a story from inside the mind of a deranged psychopath. In what is unquestionably the film's most stomach-churning sequence, Reed prepares for his murder by re-enacting exactly what he plans to do when push comes to shove. We're, mercifully, only shown his half-baked mimicry of the event, but the sound is so visceral, so gruesome; when you can hear the grisly details of a butchering, it still packs a punch.
In a necessary maneuver, the film manages to overcome its nastiness by blurring the lines between his internal state and external actions, providing the perfect foil in the equally unreliable Jackie. Played with a certain unpredictability by Wasikowska, you never get the sense that Jackie has many murderous tendencies- in fact, you never get the sense that she feels much of anything at all. It's absurd to think that Jackie actually wants to be murdered- it's the kind of idea that would only pop up in the brain of a crazy person- but Pesce's greatest trick is making it somewhat plausible in the twisted world of the film. We have enough distance to laugh at Reed's strange murder fantasy, yet it's nauseating all the same.
Adapting a novel by Ryû Murakami, Pesce injects so much raw style into the film that it'll prove to be irresistible for fans of the macabre and the dangerous. Even I couldn't help but crack a smile when Goblin's iconic music from Dario Argento's Deep Red kicked in at a key moment, underscoring Reed and Jackie's separate trips to the hotel with a certain kind of gaudy panache. And when drugs enter the picture in the final act, Piercing becomes a surreal spectacle of sexual nightmares and memories, all brought to the forefront in spectacular fashion.
Despite these impressive moments of cinematic flair, it's hard to find a whole lot of meat on Piercing's flashy bones. The film seems to be building toward a sickly satisfying joke at Reed's expense, which is a natural conclusion for such a nasty character. Still, in a story mostly built around characters awkwardly sitting in dour hotel rooms, it's almost a disappointingly slight payoff. This saga of S&M and murder is icky and appropriately unsettling, but it'll likely leave you wishing its feats of POV and style amounted to something more substantial in the end.
THE FINAL GRADE: B- (6.4/10)
Images: Universal/IMDb
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