Schizopolis

Soderbergh stars while simultaneously wearing the directorial, authorial and cinematographical hats for this quirky absurdist comedy.

The film is features interconnected story lines that involves a self-helf guru T. Azimuth Schwitters, a pest exterminator dallying with bored housewives named Elmo Oxygen, both of which strikingly resembles Soderbergh, who himself plays two different characters, an employee in a company that manages Schwitters's activities, Fletcher Munson, and a doppelganger dentist, Dr. Jeffrey Korchek, both happens to live in the same neighborhood.

I got to say that he looks good without a shirt, even if he's bit on the leaner side (No kidding). Makes me wonder why he hadn't been in front of the camera often, he's a fantastic actor who embraced the goofiness and awkwardness of he characters he played (Not sucking up really).

The first two acts explores the two Soderbergh personas' point of view and the third is a bit of a puzzle in which some of the scenes that were shown in the previous acts were re-done in a different vantage point.

The film feels gritty without being amateurish. The performances from not-so-well-known performers are never second or third-rate. The manner the story unfolds, can be likened to a cerebral jigsaw puzzle which would reward film connoisseurs who doesn't just like their movie-watching experience a passive one. (But of course, one has to read the manual somewhere to figure out or decode what the maestro is trying to relate to the viewer.)

My rating: B-plus.