Calvin Reeder’s “The A-Frame” is filled with well-articulated concepts yet to be developed into an effective piece of work. It is a film about the inevitability of death and embarrassing desires of running from it and how creatively, the narrative design turns towards terminal illness. But as the narrative starts exploring the Sci-Fi aspect, it compromises on the beauty of the aesthetic design and of the narrative structure and apparently is stuck in the in-between stage of satire and horror genre without fully embracing any.
At the bottom of the structure is a therapy group for cancer patients and it is headed by an organized but coming to the point Linda (Laketa Caston) and it forms the word obese verging prologue of the film and gives an indication on how the film deals with fear and craving aspects. “The A-Frame” is filled with dialogues; the scripts are rich with words, mainly conversations. It is not only drama but drama where most of the drama contains heavy over explanation of the scifi elements, which creates a disjoint character; a bitter young woman in her early 20s, Donna (Dana Namerode) who is introduced into Linda’s heavy therapy session immediately she was diagnosed. Donna sarcastically tells the story in a negative environment, upbeat still hiding her worries covered with a thick shield, which is one the film does not – even slightly – seek to penetrability.
First, a little disclaimer. I am not a filmmaker or a screenwriter. Thoughts are just thoughts and as such do not deserve a lot of concern. Donna is a pianist who is threatened to lose her arm as doctors prepare to amputate her limb so that the spreading cancer does not get worse. This is where I expected a little more depth from – a hot blooded scientist, ideal for the part of Sam (Johnny Whitworth) – who knows far too much about her than she’d like. Sam however, has other ways to introduce himself to Donna, albeit, rather crudely. Cannuli, he asserts, studies ‘cancer by looking at it through quantum physics… Doesn’t sound to a layman, but it encompasses great opportunity even in fields that are quite distinct from expected specialisations.’ Providing light on self-deprecating problems, he then invites distraction, friendly although still inappropriately for the professional setting and in the light dim grimness of his surroundings fills warm thick air with oppressive heat and humidity. The proportion done by Reeder is quite unpositioned if I may say so myself. It’s a little too basic, too neutral a shot. It is not too tight to invite emotion and not so wide that it intrigue. He harrows when it comes to shadows in relation to inherent form, they are mostly for hiding features and not for adding detail or dramatic form.
Paradoxically, in Sam’s case, the manipulation of cancerous cells occurs as a surprising side-effect of his work in the domain of parallel worlds, although his techniques are still unverified, which poses a string of oppositions to Donna to allow herself and other patients such as herself to become test-sugares. Not much develops in the storyline in view of multiversal entanglement that was referred to so often in the movie. In the cutting room, few embellishments appear with regards to the use of cross-dissolves within the metatextual structure: transitional sequences of contrasting visuals (pleasurably reiterating the presence of possibilities within possibilities) are used – but such a concept is not present in the plot, although there are temples with spinning gears and psychiatrist talking about other worlds. Although at first it might appear to be a religiose and a ‘last resort’ dealing with a myriad of problems films, it does however eventually turn so literal genre conventions, although any such boundaries are attempted visually or thematically, never figuratively as if there ever were such boundaries.
These limitations of imagination go hand-in-hand with limited filmmaking. The insufficiencies of the film’s editing become evident during its many talking-head sequences when the editing style becomes purely structural, earnest in cutting dialogue from one line to another as if information held more significance than feelings. The camera rarely holds on Donna’s life-long obsession, or Sam’s greaseball ambition or any character gaze or sexual appetite which causes the little physical intimacy there is, to come across as jarring.
“The A-Frame” does on occasion come to life every bit when Donna becomes sad as her friend Rishi (Nik Dodani), a standup comic that jokes about his illness fractured seeking for happiness. Dodani creates enough silly and serious scenes in his pained response shots that whenever he’s in the picture the story comes alive but the same cannot be said of the other cast members, who makes no criticism as if they are exactly on the lines regardless of their scripts.
The Movie’s most visceral confrontation of death manifests as an imaginative body-horror interlude. It lasts for a few seconds, but contributes to the shape of the narrative, hitherto abstracting the reality of cancer to harmless discussions of acceptance — putting one’s emotions into the distant concept of cancer and then discussing it very generally. This too, however, gets stuck in back and forth approaches — one part sympathy, one part cosmic revenge. All these serve to make the tone of the movie worse.
Such scattershot writing leaves the audience struggling to comprehend the intentions behind how “The A-Frame” behaves: is it meant to be funny, moving or imposing? Most of the performances by the actors intentionally obscure information — they do not reveal — and even less in the filmmaking is aimed at making sense of how it looks on the screen. The treatment of death using a formulation of a particular genre has been dealt with in a far too superficial manner. And in the end, this is a film dealing with such an intimate issue that is overly emotionally protective, bland, and unable to evoke any feelings.
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