User reviews

Having heard very little about this film and but remembering its trailers, perhaps accidentally watched this film lesser on not so purpose.

Now this film has the feel of a neo noir type independent and lesser Hollywood atmosphere, and for those reasons it works. The atmosphere is very subtle and mysterious and there are a few things along the way which keeps are interest.

Unlike many films today, Under the silver lake is not so predictable which makes it a joy to watch. The runtime is quite length and at times may seem as if the film is about to end, then suddenly some other discovery occurs.

Enjoyable film simply for the adventure we see the character of Andrew Garfield goes through. Although the ending was somewhat of a letdown.

I was kind of surprised by this movie experience. I just came back from sneak preview and the movie still lingers in my mind. I love Andrew Garfield, his performance was believable and I think he's one one of the best rising stars of Hollywood. I also loved his work in "Breathe", great movie, make sure you check it out.

The storyline is a bit weird, and it's pretty much centered around Andrews character, so the movie felt a bit small to me, but Andrew performance makes up for it big time. I also loved the nudity in this movie. I would describe this movie as playful, curious, funny and authentic. This is not the usual Hollywood crap, it's quite different, I had no idea where the story was going, which is a good thing because it kept me hooked and that doesn't happen to me very often anymore. I truly had a great time. It's not for everyone I think but if you like semi thriller/detective/humor/absurdity kind of movies, we'll get yourself a bucket of popcorn and have fun!

(English is not my native language)

This movie is in a few words: strange, intriguing, dull, intimate, and dare I say addictive. The plot is seems pretty simple enough yet as you watch you can get lost at the movies direction- it's at times realistic and other times feels like the next scene will have something outer worldly happen. Regardless the protagonist (Andrew Garfield) whose almost a viewer himself just along for the ride except in real time is one of the movies real gems. It is definitely not for everyone rather it's not for most I believe , as some may really find it boring and/or stupid however if you're looking for something different and that will get your conspiracy senses tingling definitely one to watch.

My wife and I watched this at home on DVD from our public library. The DVD box doesn't give away much, "A delirious fever dream about one man's search for the truth behind mysterious crimes, murders, and disappearances in his East L.A. neighborhood."

The movie is a homage to 1950s film noir, and even the music was composed to evoke that feeling. Andrew Garfield is Sam, about to get evicted from his apartment for lack of payment, and about to have his car repossessed. But he doesn't seem to be in any rush to get work. He is only interested in finding out why a pretty neighbor disappeared suddenly.

Silver Lake is a community outside L.A., just east of Hollywood. There is also a reservoir there, which plays a role in the mystery. Frankly when it was over neither my wife nor I could explain a story in what we saw, but the style is so captivating that we kept watching.

I enjoyed it, my wife less so. It is not the type of movie everyone will enjoy.

Quite a different experience, which is hard to say about films in recent years. Takes a while to get going but worth the wait

Finally released in my neck of the woods, A24's Under the Silver Lake starts off 2019 with a bang; an ambitious, labyrinthine, and transporting treat for all human senses. Its colors exquisite, its music delightfully old-school, and its story wonderfully bizarre and original, I've a feeling I already have one of my entries on my 2019 list set.

It starts with the young and aimless L. A. resident Sam (Andrew Garfield), who sees a mysterious woman played by Riley Keough at the apartment complex swimming pool. Although he finds a friend and maybe a lover in the woman, he later finds that she's disappeared without trace alongside her flatmates. Wanting to get to the bottom of this sudden departure, Sam finds out more than he expected, including the woman's connection with the death of a local millionaire, a recent series of dog killings, a peculiar indie band called Jesus & The Brides of Dracula, a "Homeless King", and other things that seem to eerily correspond with the plot of a zine he's been reading.

The side characters are many but they all leave an impression. We meet the adorable but strange Balloon Girl (Grace van Patten, niece of Dick), an actress known as The Actress (Riki Lindhome), Sam's conspiracy nut friend (Patrick Fischler), another friend (Jimmi Simpson) with his head oft in the clouds, a hipster friend known simply as Man at Bar (Topher Grace), and many more. Some are given cameos before they become important to Sam's quest but they remain entertaining throughout.

The director is David Robert Mitchell of It Follows and the composer is Disasterpiece, who provided the Carpenter-inspired synths for that very same film (I recall not being too hot on his music in that film but I've changed my mind). Like It Follows, this movie has an old-fashioned feel, albeit in its own ways.

Characters in the film prefer to hear their music on vinyl, play their games on a Nintendo Entertainment System, and get their porn from Playboy. Someone categorized this film as "hipster noir" and I can sort of see why.

This is an especially great film if you're into mysteries, urban legends, and conspiracy theories. It touches on everything from creatures said to lurk around Los Angeles at night, to secret shelters, to messages hidden within our music, to the idea that all of said music - whether it is rebellious or conformist, regardless of generation - was all masterminded by one person to shape our culture. On top of that is the directing and camera work; the clever, often Wes Anderson-like compositions as well as the long takes that involve many actors, extras and locations at once.

Under the Silver Lake is mystifying, to be sure, and some may be disappointed at its lack of answers. However, it is an original (yet classical) and at times mind-blowing film, even to those who aren't exactly conspiracy theorists. Those who end up liking it, as per my estimation, will end up REALLY liking it.

This movie was actually pretty interesting and kept me engrossed from the beginning. However there was a lot of stuff that wasn't explained and was left up for interpretation. Just gave me an uneasy feeling the whole time, but I think that was the point. I'd imagine that you'd need multiple viewings to "get" it, which I have not done yet. If you like creepy, weird, nutty thrillers then this is for you.

Kinda makes me sad that this film could've been phenomenal if it was more considerate to the casual viewer. Bittersweet because it's great that filmmakers are able to make movies with little to no creative interference, but sometimes it's for the best. I'll start with what I like: this film has style for days. The lighting, production design, stilted characters were all mesmerizing. What I didn't: it felt meandering, bloated, and ultimately pointless. I know there's the "that's the point" argument to counter my "it was pointless" point, but when does "that's the point" become a cop out? I do think this film will garner an audience, but if it were just a bit more orthodox, it would've found that audience instantly.

Let me preface this by saying I was very excited for this movie. I'm into mysteries, I'm into noir, I'm into giallo, I'm into people making things that are ambitious and unpredictable, I'm a sucker for Riley Keough, and I was a pretty big fan of IT FOLLOWS. But, I never could have imagined this...

With this film, David Robert Mitchell has basically solidified his position as the world's new Richard Kelly. IT FOLLOWS was his DONNIE DARKO, and THIS is his SOUTHLAND TALES. Southland Tales is the ONLY movie that I find this truly comparable to.

First, it's strengths: it is astronomically ambitious, unpredictable, and it will go WAY out of it's way to try to be weird. You have to give anyone who is willing to go THAT FAR out on a limb a little bit of credit. But, aside from that, the casting of a few extremely good looking people, and the desire you'll probably feel to continue observing this 2 hour and 20 minute freakshow just to see if the train wreck can get any uglier, the positives end there.

Now, let's just talk about the most painful parts: Garfield's character is impossible to take seriously the majority of the time. His portrayal of a smelly (people bring up how horrible he smells literally every 5 minutes throughout the film) timid weirdo is awkward in the wrong way - reminds me of Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook - you're trying to be a weirdo but it's not working - I see acting, I see trying. Then, he transforms into the Terminator in some really out-of-place sequences that would be really cool if they didn't make such little sense in their placement. Second, this is a movie about Los Angeles that feels like it was made by someone who only knows as much as tourists know about Los Angeles. The locations are all the most cliche L.A. staples, which serve their purpose, but the majority of the characters feel like ignorant caricatures of what outsiders think L.A. people are like: yoga hippies, music producers, prostitutes, but all depthless interpretations with no inspiration - there is one specific "L.A. party" sequence on a downtown rooftop full of bland L.A. actors trying to portray eccentric L.A. people and it's so off base it feels like a rejected Target commercial.

It's clear that this movie wants to be Mulholland Drive, but it lacks the conceptual focus, the effective dreamlike surrealism, and the palpable creativity that make that film so masterful. The "homeless king" clearly wishes he was "the mysterious cowboy", but he's not - his crown looks way too cheap. Under The Silver Lake is full of "totally random" characters, scenarios, and cryptic "clues" that eventually tie into EACH OTHER, but still leave you feeling like they all served no plausible purpose in the end, like connecting a bunch of effects pedals with coupler cables but then having no batteries or AC adapter to power them up with.

After the brilliant sleeper horror movie, "It Follows" - this quaint homage to neo noir is the director's next offering. Mitchell is an auteur with a distinctive style which comes across strongly in this movie. Garfield is very engaging as the rather unpleasant 30 something slacker, Sam. A bit of a waster who somehow gets embroiled in a weird and wonderful mystery after his sexy blonde neighbour disappears. The cast is large, the locations in LA are strange and dreamlike and it plays like a wacko dramedy with neo noir overtones. It's an homage to Hitchcock and Lynch and you can see the influence of these two greats in this movie but it's also a very original ramble through one man's particular obsession. It's a very long movie but doesn't feel like it. Garfield is in every scene and is brilliant. He plays world weary and scuzzy very well! Riley Keogh plays the femme fatale whose vanishing act gets Sam started on his quest, and she doesn't have to do much but look gorgeous. The rest of the large cast play their parts well, but its Garfield's movie. The plot is surreal and ridiculous and ends with as many questions as answers. The scene where Sam gets his hand stuck to a copy of a Spiderman comic book is hilarious and a nod to Garfield's role as the web slinger! Quite a few Easter eggs and in jokes if you look for them. This strange offering won't be everyone's cup of tea but I loved it!

This was a weird movie. A really weird movie. So much symbolism and crazy without a ton of explanation for anything. I love all the metaphor in it but I do wish there was more of a coherent throughline. There feels like a great conversation here about our relationship with various forms of media and reality. Garfield gives a very solid performance and it's overall engaging but it feels a little off. It's so heavy on the metaphor that the actual relationships don't really track or make sense in a meaningful enough way. And because there's not enough basis in reality it's a little tough to keep track of what all is being said here. All that said, this is a great conversation movie. You're gonna wanna talk about this one when you finish it. I also think it completely warrants rewatching to try and capture more of the symbolism and idea that went into this, if you liked it of course. All that said, this doesn't feel like a great movie for the casual movie watcher, it's a little too off-filter and abstract. It is a great recommendation for the movie fans and cinephiles out there though and given that it's readily available on Amazon Prime, that makes it an easy call for most folks.

This movie has too much and not enough.

Too much length, too many plot threads, too many characters, too many wanna-be-argute references, too many unresolved nodes. Sadly, not enough meaning.

As other reviewers noted, it tries hard to be Mulholland Drive and Donnie Darko, but it falls short of expectations, especially in the uncompelling ending.

My son (who liked it) tried to convince me to see some deeper metaphorical level, i.e. One which would be delivering some harsh criticism of Hollywood's alleged many sins. Sorry, I don't buy it: if such was the intent, then arguably the implementation defeated the purpose, ending up guilty of these very same sins.

It's not all bad: the acting is OK, as well as the photography and the cinematography. Spotting the many references is fun at first, to quickly lose interest.

To me, the real problem is the erratic, self-indulgent direction, seemingly unable to convey a meaningful consistency to the movie, a compelling raison d'être that would and should have made this movie memorable rather than a disappointing sequence of fragments. Lots of dots, unconvincingly connected. All in all, a lost opportunity.

Sorry, even though I wanted to like this movie (or possibly _because_ of that) I just cannot recommend it.

Quite a strange movie that doesn't really go anywhere but is nonetheless compelling in that the journey to nowhere is quite entertaining.

I've watched this movie without knowing much about it. I still don't really know what to think of it but I somehow enjoyed it. A lot of things going on, and you just have to take on the passenger seat and see where the journey goes. The movie has a dreamlike quality to it - things just happen with a loose connection but it's follow-able. I like how strong counter perspectives to the protagonist's thoughts are expressed through side characters. This makes it hard to predict what is going to happen and which "side" is right with their world view. Again, it is highly trippy and not your usual mystery thriller. Enjoy the watch!

This movie is cryptic, yet utterly confusing. Compelling, yet horrendously unwatchable. Genius, yet a hell of a let down. And unlikeable, yet a code-cracking masterpiece? Let's just put it this way: unless you're willing to watch yourself dive into a who-knows-how-long rabbit hole of confusion, to find that the overall "point" of the film (which the film ultimately admits) is that there is no point, just stay away from this one.

Under the Silver Lake is a mysterious neo-noir drama featuring Andrew Garfield as an obsessive, completely unlikable slacker who puts himself in the position of a sort of self-employed detective when a young woman who he finds swimming in his apartment block's pool suddenly vanishes without a trace. His motive to care about finding this woman is that he thinks he was heading down the track of getting in her pants. Your reason to care about him finding this woman is because you just wanna know what the f### happened and where she is. Anyway, you can basically sum up that the whole 2 hours is just his character blubbering around trying to crack a bunch of stupid codes, that you're supposed to devote your precious time into finding more codes to crack.

Some audiences will just be impressed and watch this LA-set mystery-mess for its cinematography and soundtrack, both of which are absolutely fantastic and undeniably treat your eyes and ears. The movie almost plays out like a mystery-themed video game, in which the protagonist is slowly finding out more information that eventually leads him to the answer he is searching for. But when you consider the Under the Silver Lake's strength in compelling you and leading you to desperately want all of your questions answered, the fact that it took so long and featured so many dumb plot points makes you regret getting yourself into this mess.

The film certainly ends with more questions than answers, with major plot points surrounding this seductive owl lady and an unidentified dog killer that end up being carelessly disposed of. By sprinkling boring codes around for you to try to analyse and break when you have better things to do, it's painfully obvious how genius and how highly it sees itself as. Can movies be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, too? For the director of a psychological horror masterpiece to jump to creating this kind of movie, makes it even more of a disappointment that you shouldn't waste your time, energy and effort on. But to be fair, it knows how to suck you in, and the cinematography, soundtrack, and use of songs are excellent.

If you liked this review, check out the full review and other reviews at aussieboyreviews.

Some may feel like the title is misleading. Then again, what title would fit this movie? I didn't really think too much on that, since I quite liked the movie. Now I can understand what people don't like about it (it seems without a point or goal, main character is not that likeable, some may feel sexist tendencies poking through).

If you can accept this as a movie that is all over the place, does not try to be political correct (quite the opposite) and tests the boundaries of storytelling and character arcs, you may find pleasure in watching this, just as I did. The things you don't find ethical, show that you are "good". Btw something the movie does comment on too. You may like that pragmatic touch or not, but it is there. And while you can also consider it a bit cliche, the way it is woven into the story makes it kind of unique.

Again, this will not be something that will touch many people (as is evident by the rating already), but those who get behind it, will love it with all they have. You just have to find out on which side you are on

Think of Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice, David Lynch's Mulholland Dr, Brett Ellis's Rules of Attraction and you might get a feel as to what you'll find in this title...

This film ceratinly isn't for everyone! Surreal undertones, obscure scenes and some controversial storytelling which'll push it in cult status in years to come. The film also touches onto the classic Noir genre of the 1950's and does it very well. Perfomances from actors are great and engaging and the strange storline really pulled me in. Its definitely a journey well worth the duration if you're into something totally different to the generic releases being pushed into the mainstream these days!

9.5/10 a brilliant film

"Under the Silver Lake" is a superbly strange, interesting, clever, witty kind of slacker suspense story which is undercut by the New Millennium Curse (NMC).

You see, in the new millennium, almost all movies are cursed in the following way: they are too long. This is fatal to a thriller. The movie assembles its conspiracy with details that are too spaced out to be easily correlated in the viewer's mind, and thus, suspense does not build.

However, there is a lot to like about the movie besides that. Andrew Garfield, particularly, is brilliant in the lead role.

Under the Silver Lake is a pretentious, self-indulgent, convoluted, overlong mess. Positioning itself as equal parts neo-noir and genre subversion, it is essentially a cross between David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001) and Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice (2009). With the major difference being that it's absolutely, unrelentingly terrible. As with Mitchell's previous films, Silver Lake works as both an example and a subversion of genre - it's a mystery noir à la Kiss Me Deadly (1955), The Long Goodbye (1973), and Chinatown (1974), but is also at pains to undermine and critique many of the generic markers found in such films. A 140-minute labyrinthine, paranoia-laden shaggy-dog story full of MacGuffins, false leads, narrative dead ends, and unexplained details, the film relocates the detective stories of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett to the chaotic postmodern era of cognitive semiotics where the relationship between signifier and signified is now so arbitrary that meaning-making itself has become a protean commodity. However, it is easily the most self-important piece of garbage I've seen in a long time; a philosophically juvenile rumination thoroughly convinced of its own portentousness. Fundamentally misogynistic, it's at least 45 minutes too long, with an unfocused narrative, poorly thought-out metaphors, and an insipid protagonist. The cinematography is pretty though.

Set in contemporary LA, Under the Silver Lake follows Sam (Andrew Garfield), a 33-year-old man-child with no job, no ambition, and no direction, whose day consists of sitting on his balcony watching his neighbour (Wendy Vanden Heuvel) parade around topless, having unfulfilling NSA sex with a friend-with-benefits (Riki Lindhome), and visiting his drinking buddy (Topher Grace) to use a drone to spy on women (it should tell you a bunch about the film that none of these three characters are even assigned a name). Out of the blue, he meets and instantly falls in love with Sarah (Riley Keough), but when he visits her apartment the day after meeting her, he finds her gone and the apartment empty, apart from a shoebox with a photograph and a few trinkets, and a strange symbol painted on the wall. Although he later identifies Sarah as one of three women killed in a car crash alongside billionaire media mogul (and professional stuntman) Jefferson Sevence (Chris Gann), having recognised a hat found at the scene to be hers, he refuses to believe she's dead. And so begins an odyssey to track her down that ultimately involves, amongst other things, a hipster pirate, secret codes hidden in everyday objects, a glam rock band named Jesus and the Brides of Dracula, a dog murderer, a conspiracy theorist comic book writer (Patrick Fischler), the Hobo Code, a vast network of underground tunnels, an actual literal homeless king (David Yow), a helpful coyote, an unhelpful skunk, an escort agency staffed by former child-stars, a balloon dancer (Grace Van Patten), a walled-off Xanadu-like mansion, a mysterious songwriter (Jeremy Bobb) with a strange claim, a female serial killer who enters men's apartments wearing nothing but an owl mask, and a New Age cult lead by super-wealthy men.

Perhaps the most immediately obvious aspects of Silver Lake is the sheer range of homages that Mitchell includes at both plot and structural levels. Some of these homages are impressively handled, some not so much. Disasterpeace's score, for example, and Mike Gioulakis's cinematography are both extremely retro, serving to situate the film firmly in the formal styles of yesterday. Vreeland's score (although I didn't like it in and of itself) is a solid imitation of the work of composers such as Franz Waxman and Bernard Herrmann, whilst Gioulakis's photography, with its overly dramatic camera movements and crash zooms that seem to come out of nowhere, recalls the work of Robert Burks and Sam Leavitt.

Most of the other homages come at plot level, and although some are well integrated into the narrative, many feel shoehorned in, as if Mitchell is showing off his range of reference, so much so that the film essentially becomes pastiche. Examples include Sam's mother's obsession with Janet Gaynor; Sam sitting on his balcony using binoculars to spy on people, á la L.B. Jefferies (James Stewart) from Rear Window (1954); Sam and Sarah watching How to Marry a Millionaire (1953); a brief glimpse of an Amazing Spider-Man comic (intertextual and self-reflexive, given Garfield's appearance as the titular character in two films); a visual quotation of Marilyn Monroe in a swimming pool from the unfinished film, Something's Got to Give; the Brides of Dracula doing a cover of Lulu's "To Sir with Love" from the film of the same name; a visit to Griffith Observatory from Rebel Without a Cause (1955); a very on-the-nose shot of a gravestone with the word "Hitchcock" on it; and a scene that references songs as varied as "I Love Rock 'n' Roll", "Where Everybody Knows Your Name", "I Want to Know What Love Is", "Smells Like Teen Spirit", and "I Want it That Way". The most consistent referential touchstone, however, is David Lynch, particularly Mulholland Drive, an infinitely superior mystery thriller also set in the darker environs of LA involving a sprawling cast of strange characters.

Thematically, the film is all over the place, never settling on any one issue, instead jumping around like a hyperactive puppy trying to be in eight different places at once. Characters say things such as "who isn't being followed these days?" and "the ideology you thought you adopted through free will was actually subliminal messaging", but it's all meaningless in a narrative chaos where nothing is ever examined for more than a couple of minutes. Positing that pop culture has profound hidden meaning (in direct contrast to most cultural-anthropological thinking), the film is so imprecise and scattered that it's impossible to tell if Mitchell actually buys into the notion that schizophrenic conspiracies are all around us or if he's being facetious.

And yes, I understand what he's doing - presenting the film from the point of view of a pop culture-saturated Millennial who's easily distracted and hence keeps losing the run of his own story. However, Oliver Stone did a far better job of depicting a similarly media-soaked shortened-attention span over 20 years ago with Natural Born Killers (1994). Easily the most interesting issue touched on is the concept that much of what has defined generations and been the artistic impetus behind and symbol of cultural revolutions throughout the 20th century all comes from the same corrupted and cynical place; the music that has most embodied rebellion and freedom is actually even more manufactured than the worst boy band could ever be. This is a fascinating and fundamentally postmodernist idea, but mere moments after introducing it, Mitchell abandons the theme entirely in favour of a piece of gratuitous violence which says nothing of interest about anything.

The most troubling thing about the film from a thematic point of view, however, is how it depicts women. Yes, it's partly about the male gaze and how Hollywood has a track record of objectifying women, especially in films of this nature, so a degree of objectification is necessary. But Mitchell does it to the point where critique simply becomes content - he doesn't need six women (only two of whom are even given names, and none of whom receive much in the way of characterisation) to throw themselves at Sam to adequately deconstruct the trope. Granted, his intentions may be noble; he is obviously side-lining the female characters with the goal of satirising male entitlement, but he is unable to distinguish between replication and repudiation. All the best intentions in the world don't alter the fact that the women in the film are wallpaper, and his attempt to critique Hollywood's tendency to depict women as such ends up as simply another example of the very trope he is setting out to critique. So all the unnecessary topless shots aren't exploitative you see, because irony!!

And as for Sam's quest to find Sarah? In Mulholland Drive, Lynch creates a beautiful and complex tapestry where everything has precise meaning, no wasted motion, no weirdness simply for weirdness sake. In Silver Lake, on the other hand, Mitchell just lobs anything and everything at the viewer whether it's ultimately significant or not. A pirate? Sure. A female serial killer? Why not. A dog murderer? Of course. A story that makes sense and deals with its themes coherently? Don't be ridiculous. It's like the worst type of student film where the filmmaker has been allowed to shoot whatever he wants, and ends up making something so convoluted that any meaning it may have becomes subsumed amongst self-important pretension.

Under the Silver Lake is a tiresome, self-important, overlong, intellectually juvenile mess. If Mitchell actually has anything to say about subliminal messaging, the commodification of women, wealth buying privileges even in the afterlife, the pervasiveness of pop culture, or conspiracy theories, it's lost within a painfully dull and self-indulgent plot. With Silver Lake, Mitchell has been allowed to play relatively unsupervised in the sandbox, and the results are disastrous; a swollen, self-admiring film that can't follow through on anything, thematically or narratively, a film that is totally and completely in love with itself.

There is much here to enjoy in this likeable neo-noirish/dreamlike offering from David Robert Mitchell. It looks good throughout, has plenty of surprises, some surreal touches and generally a good feeling. At some point after halfway in begins to dawn on the viewer that it is going to be some achievement to resolve all the various and varied elements that have unfolded. Unfortunately (or just maybe fortunately) this does not seem the intention of Mitchell and even more bizarre and unresolved issues are brought up in the file stages. It is perhaps advisable then to not go into this expecting the 'detective' to solve the mystery of the missing girl or the dead dogs or the fantastic caves or the secret code, but to just enjoy the moments.

Not often do you finish a film and not know what on earth it was about but its the exact sentiment your likely to feel after watching David Robert Mitchell's Under the Silver Lake, a David Lynch like journey through the sun bleached surrounds of Los Angeles.

A film that gives all new meaning to the term odd, Lake is certainly not the film you expect from Mitchell whose last film was the critically lauded horror It Follows, as we follow around Andrew Garfield's 30 something year old LA based slacker Sam, whose on a quest to uncover the reasoning behind Riley Keough's attractive acquaintance Sarah disappearance from his apartment complex.

It doesn't sound like an overly complicated set-up but when Lake throws in a mysterious dog killer, a crazed songwriter, zany religious cults, a homeless king, a talking parrot and a dream like rock band, you quickly begin to realize that Lake is anything but a stereotypical narrative ride.

At close to two and a half hours its also clear that Mitchell is in no rush to give answers to his audience as Sam's journey gets more and more bizarre, as he slowly but surely ebbs closer to uncovering the meaning behind Sarah's middle of the night disappearance.

It's the type of product that's going to encourage a lot of audience disengagement, sleep and a reaching for the off button, a likely occurrence in the majority of instances but its also not hard to see Lake quickly become a cult favourite not dissimilar in tone and place to Donnie Darko.

Mitchell has thrown in an abundance of hidden messages, metaphors and mysteries that instant fans of this work are going to lap up on repeat viewings for years to come but I cant help have the feeling that at the end of the day Lake feels like one big troll from the filmmaker, who seems on face value to be unearthing a deep and layered vision to be unwrapped by us viewers, only to gleefully be smiling down on us as it becomes more plausible that Lake is having at laugh at us with an expertly constructed plan.

No matter your end feelings, Lake is a well shot, scored and acted piece, giving Garfield one of his more memorable big screen characters and for fans of films set around the sprawling heart of Hollywood, Lake offers a unique view of the city of stars.

Final Say -

A film that's just as likely about nothing as it is something, Under the Silver Lake won't be adored by most of its watchers but it's highly likely Mitchell's unique oddity becomes an instant cult hit in the film world, talked about and examined for year's yet to come.

3 Spider-Man comics out of 5

Under the Silver Lake is a film that is trying too hard to be a cult classic. It has quirky details and plot lines. Perhaps if it were a edited to 90 minutes instead of 139, it might be enjoyable. And I wish the protagonist would take a bath. He looks like he's living in his car with the Trivago guy. I was hoping to watch a great modern noir film set in LA, but this fell short.