Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Colin West
Starring: Sylvie Mix, Jacob Rice, Justin Rose, Quinn Armstrong,
Maika Carter
A ghost investigates her own murder in Colin West's directorial
debut, Double Walker. It's certainly an intriguing premise, and in leading lady/co-writer
Sylvie Mix, West's film benefits from an engaging, ethereal
presence. But the picture feels jumbled, treading a fine line between
ambiguity and outright confusion.
West and Mix's storytelling is muddled from the off, with the viewer
playing catch up as we try to figure out just what we're meant to be
watching here. Timelines get mixed up and characters are introduced with
no real establishment of what exact role they play in the
backstory.
It opens with the funeral of a young girl, where her father delivers a
eulogy, followed by images of her mother drunkenly fretting in their
home. We then cut to a young man walking in the woods where he stumbles
across an unresponsive young woman (Mix) with peroxide hair and dressed
in what looks like a hospital gown. The man pretends he's looking out
for her, but a red flag is instantly raised when rather than call the
police, he takes her back to his home. When his leery intentions are
made physically clear, the young woman stabs him in the throat with a
teaspoon.
Through some awkward exposition delivered via voice-over, the young
woman lets us know that she's actually the ghost of the aforementioned
dead little girl. Given a choice to live one more day as a human or live
forever as a ghost, she chose the latter. It seems she's now on a quest
to take revenge on the men whom we assume played a part in her
death.
What follows is a curious breed of
A Ghost Story
and
Promising Young Woman. The ghost is only visible to "believers and sinners," and she divides
her time between killing creeps and observing people who can't see her.
She also makes a friend in a drippy repertory cinema manager (Jacob Rice), who also never thinks to alert the authorities to this clearly
troubled woman, but at least he doesn't get handsy.
West is clearly aiming for a dreamlike atmosphere here, but there's too
much plot to be dished out for this to function as the sort of movie you
can simply let wash over you. Plot details are doled out in a manner
that will have you rewinding to see if you missed something, and it's
confusing trying to figure out the exact rules of its metaphysical
musings.
With this and Poser, Mix's short career boasts two impressive performances in movies that
otherwise don’t match her diaphanous presence, which is perfectly suited
to playing a refugee from the spirit realm. With a little more work on
honing the story, West might have created an eye-catching debut. What we
get here is closer to an acting showreel for a promising young woman in
Mix.
