Deliciously Nasty Square a Noir Delight
Raymond (David Roberts) should have said no.
Trapped in a loveless marriage, when his sexy hairdresser girlfriend Carla (Claire van der Boom) – herself not exactly happy living with her brute of a beau Greg (Anthony Hayes) – presents an opportunity to make off with some serious cash so the two of them can be together his instincts scream at him to decline. But his libido screams louder and so Raymond begins to plan, knowing the only way their theft will meet success is if Greg believes his loot has been destroyed.
David Roberts in Apparition's The Square
To that end the adulterers hire Billy (Joel Edgerton) to stage a supposedly accidental fire at Carla’s home by using the Christmas Tree lights. Things don’t go quite as planned, however, and what appeared to be the perfect plan ends up proving to be anything but. Soon Raymond is getting letters claiming to know his secret and a grieving Greg is starting to suspect the money might not have gone up in flames. As for Billy, he just wants to get paid so he and his girlfriend can get out of town before things really start going south, and the longer Raymond takes to settle accounts the more violently unstable the arsonist becomes.
In other words, right back at the beginning of all of this it would have been better for everyone if Raymond had just said no.
The Australian film noir The Square throws out every curve in the book including some relatively new ones, at times taking the well-worn genre to places that are decidedly unexpected and fresh. It moves with spinet-tingling efficiency, each piece of its adulterous and duplicitous chess board having its own fiery persona that’s utterly captivating. There are no blacks and whites here just lots and lots of glorious gray, each flawed soul quickly coming to damning realizations that the choices they’ve made might not have been the best ones after all.
But there are times when director (and former stuntman) Nash Edgerton, his brother, star and co-writer Joel and fellow screenwriter Matthew Dabner don’t quite no when to quit. Things don’t just get convoluted they get so excessively so there are times that twists get so layered one upon the other it all has the potential to get just a wee bit tiresome. Just when you think things can’t get any crazier there’s a stunning car crash or a randomly brutal impaling, everything getting so insane it becomes increasingly difficult anyone, especially the emotionally destabilizing Raymond, could keep all this chaos a secret.
Yet in spite of all this, or maybe even because of it, I found myself glued to my seat watching The Square unable to take my eyes off of it. Like the Coen brother’s Blood Simple or one of John Dahl’s early 1990’s modern noir classics (Red Rock West, The Last Seduction) this is a film impossible for genre fans to ignore. Sure it gets overly complicated and yes the layering of obstacles is a bit over the top but that doesn’t lesson this story’s power to mesmerize and entertain not a single iota. There is a pulsating energy behind all the dramatics that is consistent and forceful, and by the time the whopper of a climax comes out expectedly shooting that doesn’t mean I was ready for those guns to unload.
That early Coen comparison is probably the most fitting one. Like a lot of their darker efforts, this script doesn’t pull punches and never takes prisoners. Just because you think you know who will be left standing doesn’t mean you’re right, and like Brad Pitt or poor Richard Jenkins in Burn After Reading even characters who try and do the right thing or are exceedingly likable aren’t necessarily going to make it all the way to the end alive.
The look of the film is also impeccable, Brad Shield’s cinematography having that requisite gritty feel that fits things perfectly. Like the best of the genre I always got the feeling that there were things going on in the edges of the frame that I just couldn’t make out, amplifying the building unease and keeping the pressure on Raymond as things spiral more and more out of his control.
Everyone here is good, especially the great Bill Hunter whose brief two-part cameo comes perilously close to stealing the entire movie. Even so, Roberts is just excellent here as Raymond, and even thought we get dropped into his adulterous romance with Carla somewhere in the middle his love for her and his willingness to place it above everything else, including his own best instincts, is instantly believable. The actor does a great job of making all this work, and even when some of his decisions defy credulity Roberts somehow makes a sense of them that’s difficult to disagree with.
For film noir fans or for those looking for something that’s a bit twisted and is told with intelligence and flair The Square – and no I’m not going to reveal the significance of the title – is an easy recommendation. The Edgertons have assembled a deliciously nasty cocktail that’s one heck of a lot of sickly infatuating fun. While it sometimes becomes too convoluted for its own good the central story is total winner, the frighteningly good final ten minutes good enough to warrant the price of a ticket all on their lonesome.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
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