Dana Kippel’s directorial debut Reflect examines personal trauma through cosmic New Age forces and satirizes the self-help lifestyle as a competitive event, but its surreal edge is blunted.
It’s usually a good sign if you have to think about a movie for a while afterward, but sometimes it’s just because you’re still unsure what exactly it was going for. The points in the opening paragraph were my surmisation, but it still doesn’t feel complete to me. Sci-fi satire is what it appears to be, but the evidence is somewhat flimsy as most attempts are surface level, so maybe that’s just the flavoring?
If that’s so, I’m not sure what that really leaves. A largely aimless trudge through the wilderness where ”weird” things happen? That could be interesting, but even the surreal needs grounding.
Unhappy with her current relationship, Summer sets out on a road trip to Sedona, AZ, accompanied by her four gal pals to a spiritual obstacle course. Upon arriving, they are greeted by their uncanny host, Hermes who leads them into the vast desertscape, which becomes the foreground for the interdimensional game show they unknowingly participate in.
Transported, they begin a colorful, surrealistic journey of the soul, diving into issues surrounding trauma, mental health, and female relationships. The girls go missing one by one as we discover mysterious hooded figures are following them. As the tension rises, who will figure out how to escape this and become the last one standing, ultimately winning The Game of Life?
There’s an interesting idea here. It’s a spin on the ”folks find themselves stumbling into an unnatural nightmare in the wild” kind of movie with a metaphysical theme, but as each woman’s trauma is explored, it tends to be handled in a shallow, loose manner that is often rushed through as if it was too uncomfortable to film.
This is disappointing given the idea of each woman’s experience is to confront their personal uncomfortable truths and see if they can come out the other side. It just paints those who fail as ridiculously weak or their mysterious tormentors as unfairly impatient. I suspect the idea was closer to the latter, but it’s not easy to tell.
Something else that doesn’t help this desert trip is the inconsistency in how the film looks and feels. Yes, the descent into almost otherworldly pocket dimensions should allow for that, but these tend to be varied in quality. Some scenes that depict what the film feels is ”surreal” and ”nightmarish” is nullified by visual choices that simply make them look goofy.
I can’t say I blame Dana Kippel for focusing on the most personal of issues and making her protagonist get the most fleshed-out journey. If you can work through personal problems in a feature film, then more power to you. I can also understand that exploring that means other characters and their issues end up pushed to the side. I still think the movie is weaker for it, but I can appreciate the choice all the same.
The logical approach to a selfish story is to criticize the director for not understanding that the audience is here too and wants to be involved, but despite the weaknesses of this approach, I think Kippel has actually gone down a route that’s more relatable than you think, it’s just an uncomfortable reminder of how your own story naturally means more to you than anyone else’s.
Overall, Dana Kippel’s Reflect rubbed me the wrong way, but I admire some things in it. It makes good use of its Arizona wilderness setting, and there’s something genuine about the questions it asks on the subject of healing. It needs better pacing and more muscle on the narrative bone to make each character’s struggle feel strong and ultimately tragic.
Reflect is an often breezy girl’s day out trip that unfortunately skips on the amenities.
Score: 4/10
as Coming Soon’s review policy explains, a score of 4/10 is ”Poor”. The negatives outweigh the positive aspects, making it a struggle to get through.
