Acidman

Acidman (2023)

A father - daughter relationship

The movie highlights the ins and outs of a father - daughter relationship. The dad lives in a trailer in the woods with his dog, and the daughter visits for a few days.

During the movie they work through their past, where they stand and what life brings for them as adults.

The dad has a penchant for electronic music and creates his own tracks. But he also likes to watch the sky at night to look for UFOs.

A beautiful movie with an interesting topic that shows how their relationship develops. A great watch for a quiet weekend night. The SciFi part wasn't as strong as I thought.

I have liked both main actors for a number of years, Dianna Agron when she had a regular role on the TV series "Glee". She always seemed to be a realistic, authentic actor and she is here. And Church since I saw him in "Sideways", wreaking havoc in the California wine country. Incidentally, each of them is listed among the producers for this movie.

It begins with Agron as Maggie showing up, after a very long trip, to a dilapidated home in a heavily wooded area (filmed in Oregon), driving down a narrow, dirt road. After a few attempts at the front door and getting no response she starts to back up her car. Looking down at her phone for signal she bumps something, looking back it is a man and a shopping cart of his items. She greets him with "Hi, Dad."

Thomas Haden Church is her dad, Loyd. They are very familiar with each other, mutual respect but no warmth, no hugs. We immediately wonder what the story is. This small movie is about their stories.

Loyd is an engineer living a secluded live, we get no hint of how his career went. He is now obsessed with what he thinks are his signal contacts with alien spacecraft. Maggie has arrived unannounced, mainly because Loyd has made it hard for anyone to find him or contact him. But in flashbacks we see the two of them had a very happy and engaging life together as she grew up. And he still had her hand-drawn and colored "Slam Dunk Tuesday" book from her childhood.

I really like this movie, it is all about relationships and how we deal with our inner conflicts. Agron and Church are both at the top of their acting games in this movie. I enjoyed it as a good story, but enjoyed it even more for the two actors.

It was also nice seeing scenes of the gorgeous, rocky Oregon coast. At home, streaming on Amazon Prime.

Firstly, I'd just like to point out how beautiful this film looks, especially with its opening establishing shots. The camerawork and mise-en scene are on point throughout and really give an accurate sense of place and time.

However, whilst entertaining (if not a little slow) this movie does have some flaws baked into its script. For me, the Father is a well acted character with a lot to be uncovered, but his arc just doesn't progress as the film goes on, and too much is left unsaid about what is actually going on with him. Its arguable that the director leaves this up to the viewer to decide, but considering the films runtime and lack of any other subplots, its hard to excuse this lack of character development and closure by the time the credits roll.

I'd recommend this movie to anyone who likes a slower paced character driven drama, but isn't expecting too much by the films conclusion. Acidman is a perfect lazy Sunday watch when things to do are light on the ground.

Let's get that out of the way so that people don't spend 1.5 hours thinking they will see something Sci-Fi in this move when in fact there is nothing.

There should be a law against mis-labeling movies like this. It's the third movie I've seen that claims to be a Sci-Fi, and I wind being disappointed.

Some dude spending his life in the Oregon woods looking at the night sky for signs of UFO's does not qualify as a Science Fiction movie. This is frustrating and needs to stop.

On other hand, it was a decent drama about a daughter reuniting with her estranged father, which is why I gave it 6/10.

Dear filmmakers, please, please stop mislabeling your movie genres.

Acidman is a wonderful indie Drama/Sci-fi film that has excellent performances from the two lead actors. From the first scene with them together I could see their acting talent in the way they were expressing their character's facial expression's and their body language.

Hayden-Church's character has left end-stage American Capitalism behind where he was an engineer and moved into the damp Oregon wilderness to be alone living in a trailer with his dog Migo while making experimental electronic music and going on night missions to watch UFO's appear in the sky above a nearby resevoir. His daughter has come to check on his well being from back east because she is worried about his well being, and is also dealing with some issues of her own she is reluctant to share with her father. Their interactions look and feel so genuine, the writing of the script is really tight It didn't drag at all with unnecessary plot twists, and the UFO interactions shown in the movie make me believe whoever was involved in hashing out that part of the story had real life experience with the phenomenon. This is a great movie for people 16 and up that enjoy indie flicks.