The Rambler (Dermot Mulroney) gets out of prison and returns home to his nagging wife Cheryl (Natasha Lyonne). Upon discovering sheās pregnant with another manās child, he takes off on a road trip. Along the way he meets a variety of weird and wonderful characters including a scientist and a beautiful young woman (Lindsay Pulsipher). Experiencing a series of bizarre events, The Rambler is haunted by unsettling flashbacks and soon finds it difficult to understand what is real.
Calvin Lee Reederās The Rambler is an attack on the senses and isnāt the most pleasant of viewing experiences. Told in a dreamlike narrative that recalls David Lynch, The Rambler jolts through a variety of scenarios with television static appearing to be the transition between each encounter. It would seem that Reederās aim is to disorient the viewer putting you in the shoes of The Rambler who is struggling to tell fact from fiction.
Early on in the movie he encounters the Scientist (James Cady) who keeps blowing up peopleās heads by trying to record their dreams. This soon makes you realise that perhaps everything youāre seeing on screen isnāt real and that perhaps itās The Ramblerās dreams you are witnessing. This is where we come back to the David Lynch comparison we made earlier in this review. When Lynch uses techniques to bewilder his audience it doesnāt feel forced and thereās still plenty to sink your teeth into. For Reeder however he isnāt able to evoke the same feelings that Lynch would handling the same story and it all feels a bit of a mess.
The Rambler begins as a seemingly odd road trip drama before descending into a grotesque horror that is so over-the-top itās impossible to find it scary. We, the audience, are supposed to believe that weāre watching The Rambler descend into a nightmare but the storyline is so incoherent and the characters under-developed that you really donāt care what happens to anyone.
Frankly weāre baffled what the talented cast saw in this movie when they read the script. Perhaps it was a case of ālooks good on paperā but hasnāt translated well in the execution. Dermot Mulroney, who was recently seen in the now cancelled Enlightened, deserves better than this and heās a more capable actor than heās allowed to be here. Similarly former True Blood star Lindsay Pulsipher does little more than scream and look seductive. Natasha Lyonne is fantastic however as Cheryl but sheās barely in the movie.
The Rambler isnāt quite what it thinks it is and for that reason we felt disappointed. Silly horror can be really fun (e.g. Evil Dead) and mind-bending narratives can be intriguing (e.g. David Lynchās Lost Highway) but this one fails on both counts. Instead the movie is an abundance of ideas that feel incompatible and leaves you feeling indifferent by the end.
The Rambler is playing at the rerun Theater, Brooklyn from 7th to 13th June.