LOOKING GLASS (R)
Released by Momentum Pictures
Review by Jeff Sanders
There was a true story circulating in the media about a Colorado-based motel during the 70s and 80s that was run by a man who had built a crawlspace over the top of the rooms so that he could peep into travelers’ personal sexual lives, but also claimed he was interested in doing so as a human sociological experiment. Of all the things he claims to have witnessed, the worst he said, was a murder. This seems to be the breeding inspiration for the Tim Hunter (RIVER’S EDGE)\ Nicolas Cage collaboration, LOOKING GLASS.
Cage has been taking on enough films over the past 5 years, that one wonders if he did, in fact, steal the Declaration of Independence, but unfortunately bungled the heist and now has to pay back the government in Franklins. Most of his films are passible fair. A few have been great (JOE and BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF NEW ORLEANS, for instance), some a little less so, LOOKING GLASS is somewhere between.
In LOOKING GLASS, Cage is an ex-electrician turned Craigslist answering hotel owner. He is a working-man, you can tell because he wears plaid, and aside from a brief hiccup in the early 90’s, plaid is the uniform of the working-man (and “whoa-man.”) Robin Tunney plays his wife. All we know about her is that she used to do drugs, possibly once shaved her head in the back room of a record store, and uh, that’s about it. They had a daughter who died. They are sad. They’re leaving the city. They bought a motel in the Southwest, cheap. The previous owner left so fast he didn’t even get to greet them, he just called them over the phone in a panic and told them a few short words of comfort; “Just do your job and don’t snoop around.”
Frequenting the motel are a few odd regular customers: a truck driver who likes to cheat (not on taxes), a lesbian-lady prostitute, a cop who has a preference for coffee and awkward, forceful, borderline threatening conversation. Nice folks, for sure. Another positive Hollywood depiction of small, desert townspeople, hanging around in their gas station/mechanic shops, looking inbred, with faces that could frighten a mannequin.
Eventually, Cage finds a secret crawlspace that leads to a secret area that has a secret two-way mirror that lets you look at people’s secrets. And by secrets, I mean depraved sexual acts that are only done in $35 hotel rooms with fat, dirty people (which Cage finds sexy) and dominatrix lesbians (which Cage finds sexier)! Cage seems to be enticed by this. This game of peaksy poo, in fact, seems to be helping his love life. Things are going all well and dandy until, in the grand tradition of voyeurism in film, a murder is possibly witnessed! Upon further investigation, and by investigation I mean asking a philandering truck driver, it turns out there was a previous murder (not including the pig someone murdered and threw in the motel pool, which is funny to the truck driver). With this news, Cage’s character then drives the pig out into the middle of the desert and sets the dead animal ablaze… This movie goes in a weird direction, which is why I kind of liked it.
The writing is not great. The dots never quite connect. Why does Nicolas Cage like this voyeur stuff? We really don’t know. Who is Robin Tunney? What does she do all day? Why does she sleep so much? Is it all those drugs she used to take? What’s up with all the locals? Why are they so defensive? Why would anyone ever move here? Did the realtor threaten them? Did the old motel owner have dirt on them? Why do they keep saying it’s so hot outside even though everything looks so very casual? These are probing questions indeed.
And yet, Hunter does have patience with his film that does make this preposterous cliché almost work. Scenes do pull you in. Cage does hold himself in a way that seems like, even though it wasn’t in the screenplay, he is this motel owner. Robin Tunney is underutilized but does seem like a human being. The rest of the cast, not so much, but hey, you can still win a hand in poker with three good cards, even if it’s part bluff.
That’s the best way to put it. There are enough good things going on in LOOKING GLASS that you can appreciate it, and there are enough weird things going on in it that you can smirk at it. This movie played its hand and somehow beat me with a bluff.
LOOKING GLASS is available for rental on VOD or you can purchase it on iTunes, GooglePlay, VUDU, and Amazon.
Jeff Sanders is an idiot.
