Flasz On Film

A decision to shoot your movie using a single take is a bold aesthetic choice and it can accomplish one of two things: it is either going to aid in viewer’s immersion in the story, or it is going to detract from it. There is a time and place for everything, and both options surely can be deployed with great effect, as long as the filmmakers themselves have a good enough idea which way they want to go. Fence-sitting is just not a safe bet. 

This makes Failure! An interesting specimen to examine because it is one of those movies that don’t quite look as though they knew how they want to deploy their central gimmick, or how they need to go about achieving what they want to deploy. The film follows James (Ted Raimi), a wealthy man on the brink of losing his entire fortune, whom we get the opportunity to shadow for eighty-four minutes as he struggles to keep his business empire and his sanity alive. We hang onto his shoulder as he is visited upon by a string of people – from angry business partners and opportunistic blackmailers to members of his family and friends – all of which leads him eventually to make extremely drastic decisions. In a way, at least parts of how the movie plays out could remind you of some of the more hectic sections of Darren Aronofsky’s mother! where the camera frantically shadows Jennifer Lawrence while her world is literally crumbling apart and descending into chaos.  

I believe the intention is similar here. Alex Kahuam (the film’s director and writer) wants us to experience what James is going through and inhabit his headspace as he has to juggle increasingly pestering phone calls, house guests, and other distractions, while doing his level best to maintain an even keel. And it would seem that at least a part of the viewer’s buy-in would involve vicariously co-experiencing some of the chaos enveloping the central character of this story. However, for this to succeed, the movie would have to be written in a completely unobtrusive manner, because the gimmick of watching everything without a single obvious cut is artificial enough to inhibit viewer’s immersion. A film like Victoria is a great example of the one-take gimmick working in service of the story because – in contrast to something like Children of Men where the camera actively draws attention to itself – the filmmakers aspired to remove barriers separating the viewer from the action. They wanted us to participate.

I think Failure! wants us to participate as well, especially because we never feel as though the director wanted to flex his muscles and indulge in some Cuaron-esque shenanigans. No, he wanted the camera to just be there, bobbing occasionally and moving fluidly between locations like a ghostly apparition. However – and I cannot stress this point enough – immersion also needs two additional key factors: very naturalistic writing and extremely casual acting, none of which make an appearance in this film. In fact, this entire film, as far as screenwriting is concerned, has a sheen of a stage play where nothing can be shown to the audience and everything needs to be explained using verbal means. What is more, everyone – and this includes Raimi, who is a very talented performer who is intrinsically fun to look at – acts. Nobody exists. Everyone performs… so much that you can sometimes feel some of the actors playing secondary characters are simply waiting to deliver their lines and, boy, do they try. 

Consequently, Failure! fails (sic!) to leverage its own gimmick and squanders an otherwise formidable opportunity to allow the viewer to possess Ted Raimi’s headspace and pretend as though we lived in the world of Strange Days or Being John Malkovich. Instead of immersion, we are served a performative illusion that frequently – especially in scenes involving multiple side characters – makes the movie look like a piece of pre-coded drama found in first-person perspective video games. I felt as though I was playing a game where I was supposed to infiltrate Ted Raimi’s house and accidentally triggered the events in the film… so I just stayed and watched as artificially rendered characters enacted the drama with requisite stiltedness. It was honestly bizarre. 

However, even though Failure! fails (sic!) as a one-take gimmick thriller, it is not an outright disaster. Perhaps the rather skinny running time combined with Raimi’s charisma and bravado are just about enough to make this experience somewhat positive. Maybe it is his ambiguously comedic slant. Or maybe it is the fact we are often not supposed to know exactly if some of the people Raimi’s character interacts with are real. We know for a fact one of them isn’t, but this realization throws everything else into question, too. Maybe it’s all in his head? And perhaps we have been hanging around in that video game cutscene drama not knowing we are observing somebody else’s high functioning delusions. Who knows? 

In any case, this subtle ambiguity is just about enough of a reason to give Failure! a chance, despite the fact the movie lacks severely in other departments. It may not be the most technically accomplished attempt at a naturalistic thriller able to transport the viewer into its own universe using the magical powers of the one-take methodology. Instead, it is a truly performative piece of high school theatre where the director happened to convince Ted Raimi to guest star for some reason. Maybe he owed someone a favour. Or maybe Raimi – like his character James – owed somebody money and he acted with a gun to his head. Or maybe he thought it would be fun to take part in what promised to be a cool experiment where he had a rare opportunity to hog the limelight for the entire duration of the movie.  

You know what? I’m happy he had fun. And I’m happy for those young whippersnappers, most of whom could not act if their lives depended on it, because they got to share the stage with a real pro. I just wish I had a bit more of a pleasant time with this movie, especially because it had all the opportunities in the world to become a real banger. With a bit more naturalistic writing and some much-needed show-don’t-tell hocus-pocus, Failure! could have been a real juggernaut. A true sleeper indie capable of blindsiding mainstream audiences with its bravado. Alas, it is merely a compromise because the gimmick didn’t land. The story didn’t connect that well either. I guess someone owes Ted Raimi a Mars bar or at least a hug because without his mojo, Failure! would have lived up to its title completely.