The movie follows William and Lucie, a married couple living in an isolated mountain valley, resisting change and progress by living in a way that echoes that of a time past. Sarah, their daughter, will later appear not only as an almost foreign element to that way of life, but also as a daily reminder, if not directly, to the unstoppable nature of time, a force always in motion going forwards with or without you.
According to Paul Carpenter, writer and director of the movie, the idea for Something Solid sprouted from his visits to that place where he met the family and their way of living. The married couple, Phil Dodson and Manuella Bonifaci, are non-professional actors, and Carpenter expressed his idea for a movie and they agreed. An idea that took form as the filming process went on leading to Carpenter's unplannedness to materialize as problems in the editing room. He didn't know what direction the film was headed and where to take it from there, going so far as to express his first plan for it as a horror movie. The film, despite its directionless start, has its own merits. Thematically, it could be said it is a story about the passing of time and how the crumbling pieces of bygone eras cannot resist its commanding voice. It depicts change as something resisted that has to be fought, actively opposed, or simply ignored. It could also be said it is about incompleteness, empty spaces that manifest both literally and metaphorically. The absence of your loved ones illustrates a filled place now rendered empty, and the crumbling edifices are the found materialization of something not planned well enough. Symbolic death sneaking from its hidden chambers.
Paul Carpenter's first feature is characterized by what often ails its kind: a lack of direction permeating any attempt at cohesiveness. Something Solid is a movie that is comfortable with long silences and shots. A comfortable position to be if risking producing boredom is not something considered dangerous. Even with its meager 60 minutes of runtime, it begs the question of where the line between artistic freedom and editing laziness starts to get blurry.
