SXSW Review: Goliath

SXSW film festival held a special screening of a film called Goliath, named for a cat who is owned by an unnamed main character. This middle aged male character (David Zellner) is experiencing the bad luck in life and nothing is going right. He is getting a divorce, he is demoted from his job, and on top of it all, he just lost his cat, Goliath. In his utter loneliness he devotes his time to watching obscure Asian porn and doing housework.

The concept does sound like this movie should win an award for the amount of thought and fluidity of the story, but the film fails to deliver this tale. The direction and editing fell short and the sound was either really loud or really soft as if there was no control of the audio in the film. For example, the sound of a car window being pushed up is louder than the engine starting in the same car.

The whole film was shot in Austin and was introduced by a SXSW film board member that stated, “I am friends with the director and, when your friend tells you to see something he has made, you’re scared because it can go either way. But this film is really good.” Other than this relationship there is a good opportunity this film was also shown was because of the deep rooted connection of visuals on the screen.

The film began with a driving scene of the unnamed man on a cell phone arguing about his wife running off with another man. In this scene we already see the quirkiness of the character because he must always have the antenna of his cell phone up. As the story moves along we see him watch Asian porn that has men having sex with women to the beat of a drum, a drum the women are beating during intercourse. It was a funny sight and a unique way to show how deranged this character was. After viewing the porn for a while, he comes to realize his cat has disappeared.

As the story moves along we see the unnamed man receiving his divorce papers, receiving his demotion at work, and everything pre-determined. Unfortunately, almost every scene for the next 40 minutes dragged on for way too long. The divorce papers scene was the biggest blow, lasting almost 10 minutes with no punchline.

The film is not as great as it seems. It was labeled a “dark comedy” but it really seems more like a film student’s final project than an actual festival movie. The non-direct approach of visuals was not that well executed, and the only real highlights in the film were the direct punchlines, which seemed to be to few and far between.

Final rating: 4/10