Ramekin is an amazing, adorable little film which starts off weird, grows on you fast, and ends up being much bigger than the sum of its parts. Purportedly shot in a week with an impossible budget of $500 (!), Cody Clarke manages to create an effective, if obscure neo-thriller with the most meager of resources, in the smallest of settings (primarily taking place in one small, rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn). If you can swallow the nonsensical one-joke premise (young woman harassed by dishware), you are in for a surprisingly thoughtful, witty and wild trip through a new form of modern urban hellscape, deftly told and winningly acted. Newcomer Jamie Saunders gives a bravura performance in what is for all intents and purposes a one-Woman show; her mesmerizing portrayal of Emily is alternately hilarious, haunting, harrowing, and truly unnerving. Which brings up the big question in Ramekin: what exactly is going on with our heroine? Is Emily really being possessed by demonic spirits channeled through second-hand pottery? Is she delusional? Is she psychotic? Is she merely indulging in virulent forms of adolescent escapism or childish fantasizing? Or does Emily symbolize an exaggerated archetype of a garden-variety Millennial Narcissist, a spoiled, self-absorbed personality gone completely off the rails? The answer is elusive and ever-changing, and this is what makes Ramekin such an intriguing mystery. The audience, as well as poor Emily, never quite knows where it stands, and Saunder's invocation of the many layers of the disturbed young woman is quite uncanny - at times, breathtaking. The film starts off in a pleasant tongue-in-cheek vein, so when it turns ultra-dark later on, the viewer is completely blindsided, realizing that they are in for something far creepier than originally assumed. As well as a straightforward serio-comic thriller, Ramekin works well as an allegorical piece, with Emily's situation mirroring many current psychological issues, including forced isolation, paranoid schizophrenia, agoraphobia, oppositional defiance, and morbid co-dependency - as well as addressing several familiar concerns which revolve around eating disorders. The fast-paced script is clever and complex, and open to several interpretations - all of them potentially valid. As for the title villain (if it indeed is a villain...), Clarke winningly demonstrates the budget filmmaker's axiom, that a good script, good performers and astute editing can create believable menace from the tiniest resources, creating a watchable narrative on the smallest canvas. Via the clever juxtaposition of Emily and her antagonist with adept cutting, the creepy ceramic becomes a believable character in the scenario, no mean feat when one has no special effects budget whatsoever. There are moments in Ramekin that are laugh-out-loud funny, and others which promote a horrified gasp. A curious twist ending, rather than clearing everything up, leads to even further questions, and so Ramekin refuses to be easily deciphered - a narrative conceit which I happen to love. Oh, and there is a very pleasant and fitting musical score as well. Amazing stuff really, kind of brilliant. No wonder Ramekin was a film festival darling.
