One of my favorite film noir subgenres is Sunshine Noir. I’m fascinated by how it locates the shadows in the dazzling light of Southern California. These movies usually start in Los Angeles but then shift to the fringes of the area: the barren San Fernando Valley or the San Gabriel mountains, Inland Empire, or the Death Valley desert. In writer-director Jeffrey Reiner’s “Lake George,” two outcasts embark on a crime journey that brings them to nearly all of those desolate, lonesome locations.
Don, the excellent Shea Whigham in his rare lead role, is an insurance adjuster fresh from prision where he spent ten long years, and can’t figure out why all his life rafts after prison are nowhere closer to him. His only lifeline left his former partner in crime, Armen (Whigham’s former “Boardwalk Empire” co-star Glenn Fleshler) is an up-and-coming Armenian mobster whose multi-million dollar residence in Glendale has him eyeing Los Angeles and Burbank. And just like any American, Armen has a larger vision, aiming for Beverly Hills. He does have a girlfriend, Phyllis (a wonderfully bizarre bleached blonde Carrie Coon), but she is being somewhat out of control and is about to ruin everything. In fact, Phyllis puts Armen on a 60,000-dollar debt to Don, payable after Don helps her get “sorted” out.
Don, who was once a family man but was pushed into white collar crime due to his gambling debts, is never one to go around murdering people. With plans of moving to Washington State with her, he snatches Phyllis up instead. But she is lively and talkative and doesn’t go along with his plan. She knows the location of Phyllis $200,000, and persuades Dan that both of them can barely survive after taking Armen. Of course, if the two of them were to begin anew, that should be more than enough Scratch. However, since this is a film noir, their plan ever so simple quickly spirals out of control.
For most of the film’s duration, there is this taut two-hander between the mousy Whigham and the extroverted Coon. Their banter is intentionally rough, but with a touch of weariness. Whigham has always been an actor who can convey a lot with a mere glance or turn of the head and in Don he looks to be invested with a role that complements his infinite capacity for emotional intensity. But as Don gets deeper and deeper into Phyllis’s realm here of blood and grusome violence, he communicates more through the eyes than through the mouth.
Funny enough she has matured into one of the most multifaceted actors of her age in her breakout parts in “The Leftovers” and “Gone Girl” a decade ago. Phyllis, in her hands, is not simply a drugged out ‘girl’ who is always ready to deliver action but a rather intelligent manipulator that ensures she plays every side to the middle. What Don does not do is control the emotions he knows how to evoke, with a gentle flick she can turn on the tears or the charm when needed. And she does not let him off the hook even at times when he is at a loss.
Underneath her strange exterior, we witness a morally upright Phyllis who is closer to a femme fatale, with her intending to harm every character in the film, but doing so after every twist and turn of the film.
With so many excellent photos of the Southern California region already part of the style of this story, it would be surprising if viewers did not appreciate the work cinematographer Tod Campbell did with this region. In effect, the two hapless partners trek up and down its hot and sticky asphalt, and the vast open spaces that are adjacent to the 101 become their own character. Basically, the film is one singular, immense gratitude to the beauty of the isolation of this vast, yet underserved area of California.
A portion of the jokes in the film is based on the fact that this place is indeed that large. It made me smile when Don explains to Phyllis from Glendale in his ‘Obelisco’ accent that he lives in Canoga Park, and she says: ‘That’s where?’ To those who know the city, it is known as ‘that city’. This type of regional humor, mixed with certain elements of the film noir genre, is skillfully integrated into his script by Reiner.
The character Phyllis serves as a tribute to the film Double Indemnity, thanks to Don’s line of work, Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing, and the work of the gutter poet Charles Bukowski, one of the California Bay Area’s own, relates to Don’s admission of bringing about trouble in the past because of gambling on horse races. The Western town of Lone Pine, which served as the location for many films, including High Sierra with Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino during Holloywood’s Golden era, can be reflected on Don’s shirt. We also see the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains while still in Inyo National Forest at the conclusion of the film.
As a writer and director, Reiner firmly blends brutal violence and existential melancholy with his intricate understanding of Southern California crime film landscapes and combines it beautifully to create stunning sunshine noir. Don and Phyllis leave a trail of broken dreams and bodies in their path as they seek for their ultimate elusive score while traveling up and down the 101. Their organic chemistry is sure to delight any fan of Whigham or Coon.
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