GAZER (2024)

4 stars

Bulldog Film Distribution. Select cinemas 25th July

Frankie (Ariella Mastroianni) likes to watch. Whilst at her job at a petrol station she observes the folks that live in an apartment building across the street, wondering about them. She struggles to pay attention as if daydreaming and is fired from the job because of it. 

She has a rare degenerative brain condition called dyschronometria which means she can’t perceive time properly. She uses an old Walkman on which she listen to cassette tapes to help her focus on what is going on around her. She has strange dreams and episodes where she completely zones out. She also has a daughter but she lives with her mother in law, due to her condition.

At a support group she goes to for people who have lost loved ones to suicide (her husband killed himself), she meets Paige (Renee Gagner) who she has seen before through the window of the apartment building – being assaulted. Paige admits it was her angry brother and she now can’t go back there to get her car keys. 

After the meeting they go to a diner and her new friend has a proposition for Frankie (who needs money – to prevent being evicted from her flat and also for her daughter). If she goes to the apartment and retrieves Paige’s car keys, and drives her car to somewhere remote, so Paige can escape to somewhere else, she will give Frankie $3,000! Seems too good to be true – what is she getting herself into? Especially as her perception of time might place her in danger. 

This mystery thriller inexorably draws you in with a suitably edgy performance from Mastroianni. The moody, often sax inflected, score suits this neo noir. The clever script marks this indie production out — with some echoes of Christopher Nolan’s MEMENTO and maybe a touch of REAR WINDOW, punctuated with Lynchian-cum-Cronenbergian nightmare visions. It does ultimately, however, like so many of these films that try to be too complex, write itself into a corner with a ‘huh?’ ending. The debut feature of director Ryan J. Sloan who co-wrote the film with his lead actress.

Steve Kirkham