This opaque piece of dry-as-dust black comic absurdism comes from Greek film-maker Athina Rachel Tsangari, a contemporary and associate of Yorgos Lanthimos, whose recent movie The Lobster this vaguely resembles at certain points. It’s described in its promotional material as a “buddy movie without the buddies”. I would call it “La Grande Bouffe, without the sex or food” – although actually there is a bit of sex and food.
A group of middle-aged men are on a fishing trip on a chartered yacht. They indulge in macho, showoffy activities such as diving and jetskiing. Pretty soon, the competition comes out in the open and they decide to rate each other on various facets of their lives, and the winner gets to wear a Chevalier signet ring. It’s a funny idea, but the film looks as if it has been grown in an arthouse film-festival laboratory.
I loved Tsangari’s cheerfully bizarre and troubling Attenberg (2010), but here she seems to be retreating into mannerism. The performances are focused and controlled, but, like the yacht itself, the film is going nowhere, dramatically and conceptually.
