The Nowhere Inn Por St. Vincent: La Identid

'The Nowhere Inn': (No Spoilers here!)

Think David Lynch, meets Spinal Tap, meets 'Eraser Head'...Very entertaining on all fronts: Musically, Visually, Storytelling, Editing, and Fun-tense character arcs...very creative!

I didn't expect much, I didn't know much about it before watching, and I even hesitated to watch it because i didn't want to hate it since I really like St. Vincent...But I was surprised!

Well written, very well acted, lots of creative use in the editing that rides the line of 'too much' but never seems to cross it. The story is clear, so I didn't have to work to stay with it: Expectations meet Reality...Glamour meets Simplicity...Trust meets Freedom...Friendship meets Challenge and Sanity meets Unravelling. These are some of the wonderful conflicts and resolutions in the film.

I was entertained throughout and yes, I definitely felt that i got to know St. Vincent - Annie Clark (and Carrie Brownstein!) a little better...well done!

I am a fan of St. Vincent and have been for years now. I am also a huge Portlandia fan; Carrie Brownstein's off-beat humor is something that I can and have enjoyed. Because of that, I was excited to watch this film, and truly thought I could handle whatever oddities were thrown my way. I was stupid to think so highly of myself. I felt out of step with this film as soon as it started and never really fell into rhythm with whatever was going on. I loved the music sequences and really enjoyed seeing Annie Clark acting (even if she was playing herself)

As "The Nowhere Inn" (2020 release; 91 min.) opens, Annie Clark a/k/a St. Vincent is in the back of a stretch limo that is driving through the dessert. The limo driver tells Annie he has no idea who she is , "and I've driven a lot of celebrities!". At some point he stops the limo and abandons Annie in the middle of the dessert. We get some concert footage, and then Annie introduces her good friend Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney; Portlandia) and informs us that Carrie is going to make a documentary about Annie... At this point we are 10 min into the film.

Couple of comments: this movie is very much a labor of love from Annie Clark and Carrie Brownstein, who co-wrote and also co-produced this. The film's director is Bill Benz, best known for his work on that other Brownstein project, "Portlandia"). Please note: "The Nowhere Inn" is NOT a documentary, but a fictional film brought to us as if it were a documentary. It's a mix of concert footage, fictional scenes, and interviews, all of it served up in a big mix of weirdness and self-conscious art. Normally, I'd be totally up for this, but truth be told that in this particular case, it simply landed with a dud. It's not for a lack of trying. Clark and Brownstein play up the question of where Annie Clark ends and St. Vincent begins. "We are not so different, me and her" observes Annie at some point. Certainly the movie suffers because there really is no plot to speak of, raising the question: what is the point of this film? So that Annie/St. Vincent can let us have a glimpse as to who she really is? If that is the case, she failed miserably as I haven't anymore a clue now that I've seen this, as compared to before.

"The Nowhere Inn" was filmed 2 1/2 years ago, and premiered at the 2020 Sundance film Festival, yes, pre-pandemic. Now 20 months later, the film was released in select US theaters. Being the St. Vincent fan that I am (I saw her on her very first tour in 2007, when she opened for the National, it was simply St. Vincent and her electric guitar, no backup band), I just had to check it out. The Sunday early evening screening where I saw this at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati turned out to be a private screening: I was literally the only person in the theater. I cannot imagine this will play much longer in theaters. If you are a St. Vincent fan, I'd readily suggest you check this out, be it in the theater (if you still can), on VOD, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.

"This is how actors play rock stars in movies."

St. Vincent sets out to make a documentary about her music, but when she hires a close friend to direct, notions of reality, identity, and authenticity grow increasingly distorted and bizarre. The Nowhere Inn is an absurd, comedic, and thriller that I'm still trying to wrap my head around. It's hard to pinpoint the genre, but whatever it is, it's working. This played apart of the midnight selection at Sundance 2020, and I remember it looked interesting (all of the midnight ones did that year) but I didn't understand what it was about. Even watching the trailer, it barely covers what it's about. St. Vincent (Annie Clark) and her real life friend Carrie Brownstein wrote and starred in the movie, of course. They have this amazing chemistry that didn't need any building beforehand. Everything you see is genuine. Though they're playing themselves, they have a unique character that we know isn't how it's like in real life. St. Vincent does fantastic with the transformation she goes through. It's so fun to watch her go through it all. And Carrie Brownstein, who I haven't really seen much before has really good acting skills. Had those two not been cast in their own movie, and I'm not sure if they originally started out writing themselves in, I don't think they could've pulled it off.

The story is extremely satirical. Once you start to realize what the movie is about, and it makes a point to it, you can see some of what will unfold. It pokes fun at documentaries and rockstars and performers and they way it's done is really cool and fun. When you consider the movie as a whole, then it gets a little more confusing. It's like a movie within a movie within a movie (I think that's right). What we mainly see is a mockumentary style story. There's different aspect ratios and styles to differentiate what story or movie we're focusing on. And the cinematography is pretty good. There's sequences shot on film, mostly the concerts, that are beautiful to look at. And it's edited really well. There are many achievements to be noted. With how trippy it is, it can be hard to figure out what the movie is trying to say. But that's also a point made in the movie where someone says something along the lines of "I don't think she really understood the movie we were making." A little more clarity would've helped, but I like having the mystery there. For a little bit the same things keep happening and I wanted a little more variety. It's one of those things where I thought they'd move on and show something else, but they keep going back to it. As a character, it's frustrating for Carrie but she lets it happen for some time. Nevertheless, this is a really fun movie. I was in the middle of watching it when my apartment building had a power outage so I had to watch it in halves. You need to be attentive and ready for anything when watching. By the end it goes completely off the rails and I'm not sure how to interpret it. Maybe a little more reading will help. Overall, The Nowhere Inn is a surprising movie that I would like to revisit again. It does land with everything, but for a psychological movie (that's the genre I'm going with) it has great craft and great start for Bill Benz to make more movies!

The film has striking visuals, but that's about all the nice things I can say about it. There is no story. The film is basically a self-indulgent, narcissistic expression of "look at me, me me me me". If this film was made for the singer to promote herself, I'm afraid it didn't work. I'm actually put off by it.