It’s no fault of Sarah Silverman‘s that her latest movie, I Smile Back, is so thematically, narratively and artistically clueless. The movie’s about her character, housewife and mother Laney Brooks, battling chronic depression, though, upon further reflection, the film is better described as a chronic depression simulator, a bridge-to-nowhere of a story that subjects us to grotesque acts of domestic horror without providing any worthwhile insight into its subject’s tragic condition as consolation. Silverman’s great—this may be the best she’s ever been on the big screen—but the truth remains that this is borderline sadistic cinema that lacks empathy and will ruin your day, if not your entire week.

Director Adam Salky and writers Amy Koppelman and Paige Dylan (who adapted Koppelman’s own novel) put Silverman in an incredibly precarious position, asking her to lay it all on the line as an actor on every level. Valiantly, she holds up her end of the bargain, committing herself to every disturbing scenario thrown her way. Silverman’s the real deal—comedy may be her forte according to current public opinion, but as she hinted at in Sarah Polley‘s Take This Waltz, she can win audiences over as a dramatic lead just as well as she can as a stretchy-faced tomboy comedienne.

The big letdown here is that there isn’t enough dimension to Laney or her story, which means all the horrible things we watch her go through—sex addiction, drug and alcohol dependence, a self-destructive case of habitual lying—are in service of no larger meaning. In short, there doesn’t seem to be a point to all the torment.

The narrative is skeletal, essentially charting Laney’s downward spiral as her demons overtake her being and consequently push her family away. Her life falls apart in slow motion as she cheats on her husband (Josh Charles, a great onscreen partner) multiple times and emotionally traumatizes their two young children via random, unspeakable acts. Chronic depression is ugly, serious business that can lead to far worse things than what we see here, but the filmmakers are needlessly cruel to Laney in that they don’t give her the benefit of a complex personality; other than her bout with depression, the only thing that defines her is that she’s an upper-middle class soccer-mom cliché.

If you adjust the lens a bit and look at I Smile Back from a moment to moment perspective, it actually works on a few levels. The actors are pretty great across the board (even the kids) and Silverman and Charles are immediately convincing as a couple. Eric Lin’s cinematography is evocative and sumptuous and Tamara Meem’s editing fits the material well, reflecting Laney’s clouded mental state with disorienting skips back and forth in time. What’s frustrating is that there’s good stuff in there; with a greater sense of cohesion and a bit more narrative context, the movie might have been decent. It’s like opening up a puzzle set only to find a third of the pieces missing.

The story purposefully holds back all but a few bite-sized details about Laney’s sordid past (parental abandonment is a prime factor), but it’s hard to guess what the filmmakers’ intent was. Surely we’d empathize and identify with her more if we could understand more clearly the path that led her to such a self-destructive place. It’s just too hard to invest in Laney’s journey, which is a shame considering how much Silverman’s busting her ass. The ending feels…arbitrary. To be honest, you could cut the story off at any point of the movie’s gauntlet of crash-and-burns and the film’s emotional impact would be the same: negligible.

The second day of MVFF38 saw the arrival of Sarah Silverman to promote I Smile Back, the actress’ first dramatic lead. I had the pleasure of meeting Silverman during a private cocktail party set up for the San Francisco Film Critics Circle (of which I am inexplicably a member) and she was sweet as can be. Despite the film’s dark subject matter and the fact that she’s been receiving some serious praise from critics and moviegoers for her impassioned performance, she was all laughs and accepted the adulation with humility and self-deprecation.

Enter the Void

After watching I Smile Back, I came away with two main thoughts. a) Sarah Silverman is a real-deal actor who should do more dramatic work and b) I Smile Back is one of the cruelest, bleakest, most upsetting, unappetizing movies I’ve seen all year. Silverman plays a stay-at-home mom whose bout with chronic depression dismantles everything in her life and pushes her husband (Josh Charles) and two kids far, far away. Directed by Adam Salky, the movie is primarily concerned with exploring in upsetting detail the different effects and stages of depression, but the story feels like a bridge to nowhere. Chronic depression is serious business, but the material doesn’t have enough depth to warrant how borderline sadistic it is. Silverman’s character gets beat up, humiliated, abandoned, and everything in between, and while the actress fully embraces the role and all the challenges that come with it, the film provides little insight, making it feel more like a depression simulator than a work of art.

Built to Last

Nordic humor, in all its dry, dark, offbeat glory, makes me laugh harder than just about anything these days, and director Gunnar Vikene’s Here Is Harold is one of the funniest Nordic comedies you’ll find, period. It’s my favorite thing I’ve seen at the festival so far, and considering how much I loved Spotlight, that’s saying a lot. Bjørn Sundquist plays Harold, a furniture shop owner who gets driven out of business by the new IKEA across the street. Having lost everything, he hatches a half-baked plan to kidnap IKEA’s founder (Björn Granath) and force him to apologize to the world for selling them shoddy furniture. The snags, follies, and friends Harold meets on his journey are best left a surprise, but I will say that the story is surprisingly moving and soulful, with touching moments that blindside you in between the laughs. Nordic humor has an obsession with death and misfortune that allows it to couple beautifully with even the darkest material; look no further than Here Is Harold for proof.

What’s the point of a good performance if it’s wasted on a bad film? That’s the question I had in my head after watching Adam Salky’s I Smile Back. Sarah Silverman plays Laney, a wife and mother of two kids with a successful husband (Josh Charles) who’s about to publish a book. But Laney has severe issues with addiction, clinging on to any possible vice she can get her hands on if her mood happens to go the wrong way. She stops taking her prescribed medication to curb her addictions, and soon finds herself drinking, snorting cocaine, popping Xanax and sleeping with a family friend (Thomas Sadoski). Janey hits rock bottom, goes to rehab, and then tries to re-adjust once she gets out.

The film’s focus on the struggle to break the cycle of addiction feels refreshing in its frankness, but Salky’s direction and the script (by Amy Koppelman and Paige Dylan) fall into a rather simplistic, familiar depiction of addiction that feels more at home in a TV movie. Laney is a textbook example of daddy issues, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that her father winds up throwing her into yet another self-destructive phase. As a result, there’s a dated feel to the entire film, with its entirely white, affluent cast of characters dealing with their rich people problems. It might have worked better in the 90s.

And while the material is lacking, Silverman commits to every piece of it with full force. Some people might find her performance a little too obvious in its attempt to play against type, but even if that were the case nobody could deny that she completely hurls herself into the role, going to places a lot of actors wouldn’t dare. It’s just too bad she commits herself to a film that’s clearly beneath her efforts. Even an abrupt ending, one that’s admirable in its refusal to give any resolution, can’t land because it’s preceded by a sequence that can only be described as abysmal in its attempt to be “raw” and “gritty.” Other than acting as a curio for people wanting to see Silverman’s range, I Smile Back doesn’t offer much else.

Bird People begins with a montage of people coming and going on subway trains throughout Paris. It’s a bit of an odd start until the perspective changes: suddenly everyone’s thoughts on the train can he heard, the camera profiling each person in a train car before settling on hotel maid Audrey (Anaïs Demoustier). It’s a delightfully executed sequence, mainly due to its unexpected shift from observational filmmaking to something more fantastical. And it’s not the only surprise Bird People has in store.

In a lengthy prologue, Bird People introduces its two central characters before splitting off into two parts. The first part dedicates itself to Gary Newman (Josh Charles), a Silicon Valley businessman staying at the same hotel Audrey works at. After a day of boring business meetings, Gary makes a sudden decision to throw his entire life away. He resigns from his job, telling his wife (Radha Mitchell) he’s leaving her, opting to stay in Europe and start over. The film’s primary location, a Hilton hotel standing next to an airport runway, gives insight into why Gary wants to abandon everything. It feels detached from the world, surrounded by paved runways and people transitioning from one place to another. Director Pascale Ferran puts a heavy emphasis on themes of loneliness and alienation in Gary’s story, something that runs throughout the second half but in a lesser capacity (more on that later).

Rather than use Gary’s decision as a launching pad for the narrative Ferran, along with co-writer Guillaume Bréaud, dwell entirely on the ramifications of Gary’s actions. Despite Gary expressing his desire to break free from his suffocating lifestyle, he never leaves the hotel, instead fielding calls from his co-workers and lawyer as he sorts out the logistics of resigning and selling off several assets. This culminates in a 15 minute sequence where Gary and his wife argue over their marriage. Ferran and Bréaud’s detail-oriented approach, along with Josh Charles’ excellent performance, make Gary’s story a compelling drama about the difficulties of starting a new life.

But when the story’s second part kicks in, swinging the focus back on to Audrey, Bird People makes a significant shift. Discussing what happens would ruin the fun in watching such an audacious, baffling reveal. It’s better to leave it at this: Audrey spends her days cleaning hotel rooms bored out of her mind until something significant occurs. In this way, Audrey and Gary’s stories are the same; both experience something major in their lives, and both have to do with their desires to experience some sort of freedom from their mundane existence. It’s just that Audrey’s story goes down such a surprising path, a sort of magical realism on a larger scale than the opening, it raises the film to a whole other level.

Ferran’s direction takes on another life once Audrey’s story kicks in, and the results are incredible. The camera, mostly locked down in Gary’s storyline, begins roaming all over the place, whether it’s swooping aerial shots or low, canted angles. The hints of eccentricity early on, including the aforementioned train scene and the sparing use of a narrator (Mathieu Amalric), end up taking over every frame. Add to that some incredibly subtle and impressive use of CGI, and suddenly Bird People feels like it’s free of constraints that weren’t at first evident. It’s delightful, go-for-broke filmmaking, a ballsy cinematic choice making the film one of 2014’s more unique viewing experiences.

And while Anaïs Demoustier doesn’t have the opportunity to show off the same dramatic chops as her co-star, she does a fantastic job making Audrey into a likable, fully realized character. A lengthy 130 minute running time, along with a disappointing final scene, put a small damper on things, but there’s no denying how powerfully delightful the film’s sea change feels. Through such a bold stroke of originality, Bird People highlights the boundless opportunities makes available through storytelling.