Rami Malek has a lot of experience portraying mentally unstable characters that spend a lot of time talking to potential hallucinations. “Mr. Robot” harnesses paranoia and distrust of corporate control. Writer/director Sarah Adina Smith’s cerebral sophomore feature Buster’s Mal Heart has similar themes, offering up a portrait of loss, grief and progressive delusion. Multiple characters for Malek to portray in multiple timelines further complicate the oblique narrative, making for a less straightforward film but one that raises thought-provoking questions.
The opening sequence introduces us to the multiple storylines at play, giving us a glimpse of two shadowy figures in a dingy out at sea and Malek as Buster, a fugitive wild man surviving in the mountains by breaking into empty vacation homes, all before landing on Malek as Jonah, a hotel concierge stuck working the night shift. From the outset, we expect to see a progression from Jonah to Buster, and Smith is hardly subtle with her hints. Jonah’s job is soul-sucking, but he trudges through the lonely nights down bleak hallways for the sake of his wife (Kate Lyn Sheil) and daughter Roxy (Sukha Belle Potter). He dreams of being able to support his family without conforming to the ideal middle class life, but it seems more and more like just a dream. The arrival of a conspiracy-obsessed, homeless computer consultant (DJ Qualls) warning about Y2K, an apocalypse and “the inversion” awakens something in Jonah.
The first words uttered in Buster’s Mal Heart are in Spanish and translate to “It was a cosmic mistake that we got this far.” Jonah occasionally tries to teach his daughter to speak Spanish, but this is voiceover from Malek’s third character, Jonas, a Mexican lost at sea and looking like a bedraggled Jesus. Smith connects her storylines with match cuts, giving visual connections between characters and time periods, if not concrete explanations. Although we may not be sure that this third character is Jonah/Buster, the imagery conjures references to Jonah and the whale, as does Jonas’ statement that “We are in the belly of the whale, my friend. With luck, he’ll eat one of us and spit the other out,” following a shocking trauma in Jonah’s life.
While the psychological drama at the core of the film is riveting, Smith’s message is ambiguous and, subsequently, intriguingly complex. Jonas’ opening line is preceded by the revelation that “God is not merciful. Just efficient.” Combined with the message phone-psychic Dr. Moon channels (“There’s been a mistake. There’s a bug in the system. We sent an exterminator. We are sorry for your loss”) it would seem that Smith intends to counter her apocalyptic, cyclical universe theorist with a God who shatters all notion of self-determination. Questions of self, control and fate blend into larger questions of existence, reality and universal balance. There may not be clear answers here, but the film overcomes the potential obstacle of obliqueness being misinterpreted as lack of substance.
Buster’s Mal Heart has plenty of suspense and psychological tension, amplified by the cramped interiors. Smith and cinematographer Shaheen Seth craft an eerie, isolated Barton Fink vibe, but the “life of the mind” that Smith aims to depict is even more desolate. The frustration—and later trauma—of Jonah’s situation, leads him, as Buster, to adopt the homeless man’s conspiracy theories, calling radio shows and spouting warnings about “the inversion” and willful ignorance. Smith leaves room for interpretation in most events, especially regarding the point at which Jonah’s sanity begins to waver. Multiple viewings are all but required, but Buster’s Mal Heart shows Smith to be an engaging storyteller and Malek to be a master of mental demise.
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