Dark Horse
Directed by Todd Solondz
Written by Todd Solondz
Written by Todd Solondz
with Jordan Gelber, Selma Blair, Christopher Walken
2011
Abe (Jordan Gelber) has very few redeeming features. He’s in his thirties and lives with his parents, he only really has a job because he works for his father (Christopher Walken), he’s overweight, immature, not particularly bright, and his bedroom is full of pop culture memorabilia. His younger brother Richard (Justin Bartha) was apparently unaffected by having such an uninspiring role model as a child and has succeeded in every way Abe has failed. His parents treat him with combination of exasperation and unhelpful over-protection. Meeting Miranda (Selma Blair) at a wedding provokes him into proving his life can still go somewhere, and he begins to court her incompetently. You can tell from a mile off that she is as hopeless as him in her own way, and she gives in for pragmatic reasons. The title Dark Horse refers to Abe in as much as he sees himself as a late starter, someone who appears to be going nowhere at first but then finds their calling and comes out on top. The film questions whether this is a valid approach, or if he’s just wasting his life and using it as an excuse to do nothing.
Gelber performs well in a role that’s pretty thankless and inconsistent, every endearing quirk and social faux pas countered by an act of utter petulance. He’s not exactly likeable, but you want to find out what happens to him. Everyone else feels like a stock character, which isn’t to say the acting is bad, just that writer-director Todd Solondz doesn’t give them much to do. Obviously all the characters are there to critique some aspect of Abe's life: that’s the whole point of the film. But they could have been written together in a way that didn’t feel so much like they were being wheeled on to provide another unflattering contrast or highlight another of his defects.
The black humour and parodying of empty consumer culture is recognisably a product of Solondz, but the general thrust of the film – breaking out of monotony, being self-reliant and making something of yourself – hasn't been an original one for decades, if it ever was. Solondz gives the fairly standard subject matter a twist by negating the usual aspirational tone and running with failure instead of achievement, and by pushing his characters’ humanity right back behind a screen of modern alienation, where friendships and family relationships are almost totally consumed by social expectations. It works in as much as it makes the film feel more original than it actually is, but this illusion collapses as soon as you give any real thought to what you’re watching. Two sets of parents making soul-destroyingly dull smalltalk about traffic and roadworks feels as tired as the atrophy it is meant to be riffing on. As a whole, it’s quite funny in places, but the insistently bleak approach makes the film nothing more than a pitiless joke at the expense of the pathetic lead character, and ultimately feels as pointless as his life.
Tom
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