Note to my future self: do not EVER drink on medication (more about this later on). In spite of its low budget, the new film Mouser, directed, written, and produced by the talented Mary Gallagher, is quite a thrilling ride. While the film only lasts a little over an hour, it certainly packs an emotional punch. The runtime goes quickly, though it hardly feels like it moves at a breakneck pace. There is plenty of time allotted towards developing characters, building the story, and creating some risky twists and turns along the way.
Let’s start at the beginning: the film opens up with Eleanor, played wonderfully by actress Romina Valentina, taking calls for her job as a telephone interviewer. She is less than thrilled to be doing this job, but, hey, you have to pay the bills, right? It was actually quite humorous to see her repeat the same opening lines on the phone about 6 or 7 different times. I used to be a telephone interviewer, so I get it. Stick to the script, no matter how tedious it gets.
We soon learn she is a college dropout, even though she only has one year left to finish her degree. Her mom calls her via video chat and tries to convince her to finish school. Eleanor refuses, though you can tell she is not happy with her current circumstances. She does say later at the party, though, that she enjoys being independent. Perhaps that is not a bad thing. But she would be trading in a lifetime of disappointment if she just chose to finish out college and move back home with her folks. She really did not seem like she was happy with where she is at in life at all.
The video calls were actually my favorite part of the movie. In place of some fancy camera effects to make it look like the characters were talking through the computer, they simply cut between the characters talking. As a cinematography fan myself, it was nice to see something new rather than skinning the cat in the same way other films do. Perhaps this film did not have enough of a budget to go over the top on its editing, but that is actually a blessing in disguise.
Eleanor attends a party with her friends because she misses them. One of her friends tells her they miss seeing her and offers her a drink. Eleanor says that her medication will not allow her to drink alcohol. Thanks to Eleanor, I might have to start blaming medication as an excuse to get out of drinking a nasty beer. Seemed to work for her. She and two of her friends meet a handsome guy named Ian, who immediately takes an interest in Elanor. Eventually, she is asked so many times by so many people if she would like a drink, that she just caves in.
She ends up passing out and her friends try, to no avail, to wake her up so they can leave the party. She doesn’t get up. Instead, Ian offers to let her sleep there and he would make sure she was okay in the morning. Since her friends do not have much of a way to get home if they wait any longer, they agree and leave her. Such great friends, right? Trust her with guy they barely even know.
Eleanor is revealed to have nightmares that really bother her. It involves a weird animal named Mouser. Mouser constantly haunts Eleanor in her sleep and we see just how creepy looking he is. It’s enough to make any of us scared if we were her.
Eleanor eventually wakes up and that is when things get interesting. She wakes up after Ian comes to check on her in his living room the next day. He asks her to go on a date with him. She accepts Ian’s offer to take her out to dinner. Ian has this weird voiceover sequence when he is picking up Elanor where he sounds like a total creep, à la Joe Goldberg from the Netflix show, You. Surely this can’t end well, right? You’ll have to watch the rest to find out. But I will say it does not exactly go the way one might initially expect.
While this movie will not make my top ten films of the year list, it was an interesting watch. Sometimes indie movies try too hard to be different and just end up being a weird movie that takes itself too seriously. That was not the case here. Sure, some things out of left field happen, but by no means does it try too hard to make itself feel separate from the pack.
3.5 out of 5 stars.
One thing that really stood out with the movie was that it was able to be made so well from a technical standpoint with budget restrictions. Mouser does film longer takes on each shot than most movies dare to. It is quite refreshing, because, many movies these days cut on each action. You might see in a blockbuster when someone is walking, it’s a wide shot. Then they go pick up a cup of coffee and it cuts to a close up of their hands. It might be snappy enough to keep those with short attention spans happy, but short takes usually take away from the actor’s performance. This movie knew its biggest strength was its actor’s performances and made the wise decision to play to those strengths
There was not as much emphasis on the edit in Mouser, but rather the characters. For a low budget movie, that might be looked at as a big risk. Many lower budget movies try to utilize quick, snappy editing tricks to compensate for not having much money to use. Luckily, it worked in its favor. The payoff is at the end of the movie. This movie needed to keep things trucking along instead of being something fast paced. An intentional build up ultimately pays off. Though, admittedly, by the end, I am left with more questions than I will probably ever get answers to. And that is quite all right with me. Sometimes a mystery ending is, in its own way, as satisfying an ending as there could be.
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