FAULTS (2014)

Studio:       Screen Media Films
Director:    Riley Stearns
Writer:       Riley Stearns
Producer:  Keith Calder, Jessica Calder, Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Stars:     Leland Orser, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Chris Ellis, Jon Gries, Lance Reddick, Leonard Earl Howze, Nicholas Tucci, Beth Grant

Review Score:

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Summary:

A distraught couple hires a washed-up expert on cult mentalities to deprogram their brainwashed daughter.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Looking for someone to deprogram their cult member daughter Claire, Paul and Evelyn turn to Ansel Roth, a once noted authority on cults and brainwashing who fell from grace after the death of a client and is now reduced to giving lectures at small hotels. Although desperate, Ansel is reluctant to return to the world of deprogramming and dismisses the couple.

A legbreaker named Mick confronts Ansel in the hotel parking lot. Mick informs Ansel that his manager Terry has dropped him as a client. Mick makes a subtle threat that Ansel has one week to pay back Terry for the money used to print Ansel’s unsold books. Faced with no other option for income, Ansel returns to Paul and Evelyn and agrees to deprogram their daughter.

Ansel and his two associates Raymond and James kidnap Claire and lock her inside a hotel room. Ansel begins engaging in extended conversations with Claire about her involvement in the cult called Faults. Ansel also reveals to Claire that her parents are staying in the adjacent room throughout the deprogramming.

Following another threat from Mick, Ansel gets half of his payment from Paul in advance and takes it to Terry’s office. Terry assaults Ansel during the meeting and demands that he receive the rest of the money within two days time.

Ansel returns to the hotel to find Claire collapsed outside the room. Ansel brings her inside to recover and continues his deprogramming process. Afterward, Ansel angrily demands the rest of his payment from Paul in order to pay Terry, leading to a physical altercation between the two men that Claire stops.

Claire and Ansel return to their room where Claire continues gradually turning the tables on Ansel through conversation. That night, Claire seemingly seduces Ansel and asserts her newfound control over him, although Ansel is unsure if the events taking place are real.

Ansel wakes the next morning inside his car. Ansel returns to the hotel room to confront Claire over what happened and they become locked inside the bathroom. Claire resumes her reprogramming of Ansel until he is suddenly able to open the door. His own brainwashing nearly complete, Ansel tells Claire that he now trusts her unquestionably.

Mick comes to the hotel room looking for Ansel and is assaulted from behind. Wondering what is taking Mick so long, Terry goes up to the room himself. Terry confronts Ansel and finds Mick murdered. Ansel beats Terry to death using one of his books while Claire watches with a slight smile.

Claire instructs Ansel to wait for her in his car while she returns to the hotel room. Claire goes over to her parents’ room where it is revealed that Paul and Evelyn are role-playing cult members who were tasked with luring Ansel. Claire gives pills to the couple and they ingest them to commit ritualistic suicide in accordance with their cult philosophy. Claire calmly returns to Ansel and tells him that they are going home.

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Review:

First-time feature filmmaker Riley Stearns puts underachievers to shame and makes it look easy.  After conceiving the story idea for “Faults,” Stearns spent two weeks hammering out his script and within 13 months, he stood onstage at SXSW presenting the finished product to an audience.  If the remarkable accomplishment of going from idea to screen in just over a year does not inspire aspiring artists to get off their duffs and start working, nothing will.

That determination to realize a project speedily is not necessarily an inarguable boon, however.  “Faults” explores a thought-provoking periphery around concepts of self-confidence and confrontations of willpower, but the frame around the subtext never quite has ample opportunity to settle in properly.

Ansel Roth is a frazzled doctorate-holder whose expertise in the field of cult mentalities once cast him as a TV personality and sought-after savior of the forcibly indoctrinated.  Those days are long gone.  Ever since overzealous faith in his abilities led to an unfortunate death, Ansel has been relegated to the Holiday Inn lecture circuit while struggling to finagle comped meals from an adjacent greasy spoon.

This is the kind of guy who steals a hotel’s handcart just because it has presumably better value than a handful of tiny soap bars, although he takes those too.  Slumped shoulders, a middle-aged mustache, and permanent ripples on a perpetually vexed forehead suggest “born loser” before his story is even told.

His sad sack has-been status is irrelevant to Paul and Evelyn, who want Ansel to rescue their brainwashed daughter Claire from the cult known as Faults.  Ansel no longer has a fire burning for deprogramming work, but he does have a loan shark agent and leg-breaking collector providing even better motivation.  Like it or not, this opportunity is Ansel’s only ladder out of a deep hole of never-ending failure and he reluctantly takes the job.

If there is any singular incentive to see “Faults,” the one that trumps all others is the outstanding work turned in by its onscreen talent.  Having been one of Hollywood’s most prolific and reliable “that guy” actors for nearly 25 years, Leland Orser seamlessly steps into leading role limelight as Ansel.  Understated when necessary and commanding when called for, the character is Orser’s to own and he does exactly that.

Evenly matched against Orser’s Ansel is Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Claire.  She has a simultaneous confidence and vulnerability swapping places underneath her performance that is finely tuned for portraying a personality capable of being both leader and follower.

Winstead’s finger is directly on the pulse of an impressionable mind operating under the drug-like influence of cult instruction.  The subtlety in the way she shakes her head left to right while expressing her convictions and the slight pursing of her brow perfectly suggest how Claire is simultaneously incredulous over the questions she is being asked, yet sympathetic that the person asking is incapable of understanding the answers.

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Promotional flyer for "Faults" at SXSW.

The seesaw philosophy battle between Ansel and Claire is where the meat of the story lies.  It is also where fascination is to be found in “Faults.”  In parts, Stearns and his cast collaborate in fashioning a hypnotic mood through that confrontation and they are mostly successful.  Once the script reaches its full stride, there comes a point of genuine wonderment where it seems that not trusting in Claire’s cult beliefs might actually be crazier than the notions themselves.

Where the movie falters is in finding a firm balance to how it wants to deliver all of its layers.  “Faults” initially paints itself with a comical base coat through Ansel’s introduction as a hapless goof whose short cons result in physical comedy bumbling and joke-spiked dialogue.

Eventually, “Faults” moves into more serious territory with themes about loss of identity, struggles for human connection, and strength of conviction.  That transition works too, as “Faults” grows gradually darker in atmosphere and in violence that escalates from a comical kidnapping to a brutal book bashing.

But by the time the plot takes a detour back to revisiting its original Coen Brothers quirkiness, it becomes a juggling act between the humorous and serious strokes that never blends the two together into a satisfying singular tone.  Perhaps due to the film’s short incubation period, it starts coming across as though “Faults” is finding its footing as it moves forward, rather than coming out of the gate with an assured focus.

It is the difference of being in the hands of an experienced veteran who is confident in where to take his/her audience from the beginning versus a newcomer still experimenting with using a cinematic medium for visual storytelling.  It makes for a movie with a distinctive vision, though not a wholly premeditated one.

Although predominantly satisfying, there are some rough edges to the production as well.  Airplanes can be heard under dialogue on exterior shots.  The tight soundstage of a pair of motel rooms makes for constricted camera movements.  And with the intensity of two characters carrying the majority of the movie, “Faults” often feels like watching a stage play, for better or for worse.

Given the places that “Faults” wishes to take its narrative, the comedic and surreal accents it adds to the style end up taking the tone out of the frightening realism that movies like “Sound of My Voice” and “Martha Marcy May Marlene” evoke.  But the top to bottom roster of exceptional talent shines brighter than the wobbled rhythm, giving “Faults” at least one undeniable asset that no reviewer can criticize.

Review Score:  65

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