CHRIS’ QUARANTINE RECOMMENDATION OF THE DAY (4/7/20): GREENER GRASS

CHRIS’ QUARANTINE RECOMMENDATION OF THE DAY (4/7/20):

GREENER GRASS

By Chris La Vigna (@Chris_LaVigna)

This poster should give you an idea of what kind of neon nuttiness awaits you in GREENER GRASS

Thank God for movies in these whacked out, plague-addled times. The world of film has always provided an escape for me in periods of stress and disarray, and these past few weeks have been no different, even with all of the movie theaters currently closed and film/TV productions the world over shut down. I love nothing more than disappearing into the world of a good movie, no matter how bizarre or abrasive that world might be. This is especially true in regards to the worlds of surrealist filmmakers. I'm always drawn to stories that operate on their own strange sense of logic; somehow I feel that you actually get a more honest statement about life that way. 

From the works of American Surrealist Film God David Lynch, to more modern filmmakers like Peter Strickland and Quentin Dupieux, nothing soothes the scattered soul, or perhaps validates its state of tumult better, than the lenses of surrealism, dada, etc. With that in mind, I'd like to tell you all about a delightfully demented comedy I recently stumbled upon, the 2019 arthouse suburban nightmare, GREENER GRASS.

Written and directed by Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe (who both star in the film) GREENER GRASS tells the story of a suburban soccer mom Jill (DeBoer) who seems to be dissatisfied with her passive pastel life, to the point where she thinks nothing of giving her new baby to her friend Lisa (Luebbe) who gladly accepts the baby as her own as the two moms watch their children play poorly at soccer.

From Left: Dennis (Neil Casey), Jill (Jocelyn DeBoer), Nick (Beck Bennett), and Lisa (Dawn Luebbe) are two picture-perfect suburban couples...or are they?

This decision, which Jill comes to regret and finds herself unable to correct (Lisa gets super defensive whenever Jill mentions wanting her kid back), is only the beginning of her problems. Her eldest child Julian has no athletic or artistic skills, wets himself in public, and around the thirty-minute mark, falls into a pool at a backyard party and emerges from the water as a dog. What's worse is that only Jill seems to be worried about this. Her husband embraces it ("He's so fast now!") and his schoolmates love this new fluffy version of Julian they can pet.

Oh, and did I mention that there's a serial killer loose in the town? One whose POV and frantic creepy breathing and mumblings the audience is treated to as they stalk Jill throughout the film? In any other film that would be the chief narrative thrust, but it's a minor subplot at best here, and it totally works!

The only thing perhaps more jarring than the characters and their bizarre behavior is the setting they inhabit, this unnamed suburb that serves as their all-consuming world. The color palette of the film is turned up to the max, from the painfully green grass to the housewives' gaudy clothes and gaudier houses. Everybody rides around in golf carts, and they all gather around 90s era tube TVs to watch shows like "Kids With Knives."  The camera movement is a mix of gorgeously blocked static wide shots and slow zooms onto distressing moments happening in otherwise serene scenes (DoP Lowell A. Meyer is one of this movie's many MVPs).

Nick (Beck Bennett) also has a thing for drinking pool water, a habit that leads to one of the film's most haunting shots.

As the film glides along, Jill becomes increasingly distressed and unhappy. It's clear that deep down she isn't content with her life, but she simply doesn't possess the vocabulary to express it. She's trapped in this pattern of forced politeness and carefully maintained appearances, (every adult character wears braces, a feature that is never discussed once throughout the film) along with the peer pressure amongst her fellow moms. 

The film's paced slowly, like a dream, yet is carried along by a nightmarish moment that rears its head in every sequence. Jill tries to liberate herself from this nightmare, but ultimately she can't move out of the boundaries she's more sharply aware of by the story's end. 

GREENER GRASS was given a limited release by IFC Films around October of last year, and is now available to stream via Hulu. If you're looking to get weird and watch some middle class morons devolve into various states of madness, give it a watch!

This is a happy family. You might not like it, but this is what peak contentment looks like.