On the face of it, Lucy doesn’t seem like the type of person who would go on a spiritual journey. Maybe she would have agreed to it herself. But she wants to, and so she struggles through periods of enforced silence and sharing sessions, hoping to achieve a kind of enlightenment she doesn’t really believe in. An embittered former teen actress, played by Jennifer Connelly with a burnt-out, brittle air that steadily withdraws from polite society, her prickly aura no match for the expensive Oregon retreat she’s signed up for, all silent contemplation and delicate confidence exercises, this energy-based conflict gives… Alice Englert’s strange and seductive satirical drama Bad Behavior Instant pull of intrigue – dissonantly violent emotions, one feels they have to make room for something physical And radical.
In the film’s rough middle, they do just that — in ways that underscore the startling, admirable rigor and candor of Englert’s first feature as a director, and also reach a point that the slightly softer, more conventionally eccentric second half can’t quite live up to. Initially, the film alternates between the stories of Lucy and her adult daughter Dylan (played by Englert herself) to form a complex portrait of women whose desires increasingly conflict with their chosen environment; Once it brings the characters together, to study wary family interconnectedness under difficult circumstances, it loses its clear dramatic and thematic definition. However, this is an original and auspicious work from the New Zealander – one that bears at least some DNA in common with the graying black comedies of the early films of Jane Campion and Englert’s mother (who appears here briefly).
“Bad Behavior” is also noteworthy as an unusually diverse and risky showcase for Connelly, an actor who may have recently scored a box office hit in “Top Gun: Maverick,” but whose pensive, nervous screen presence has been all too rare. Hollywood has tested it over the past two decades since it won an Oscar for “A Beautiful Mind.” Here, she’s subtly but clearly disturbed from the jump, already feeling the quiet distress and discomfort in her own skin when we meet her driving to Oregon, calling Dylan from the car to warn her that she’ll be out of reach for, well, however long it takes for Eid to arrive. Paid diver. Dylan, a sexy actress in a movie while filming in New Zealand, doesn’t seem surprised or concerned: the easy tone between them makes it clear that mother and daughter are at least alike in their own ways.
At once simple and sophisticated, this retreat is headed by a spiritual leader – unattractively named “Elon” – who is surprisingly clear and forthright, but also quiet in a way that suggests some kind of superior knowledge. Eschewing cult-leader clichés for quiet, everyday friendliness that eventually turns evil, Ben Whishaw deftly plays Elon as equal parts mentor and hustler: his advice is sometimes obvious, but what the person needs to hear is his own. Englert’s script avoids easy satire of spiritual quest and those who seek it, but it finds great, fragmentary comedy in the idea of one-size-fits-all therapeutic techniques, which further alienates Lucy from a group in which she already feels unsettled.
The bulk of her aggravation falls, not entirely undeservedly, on newcomer Beverly (a canny Dasha Nekrasova), a vacuous supermodel who openly fears losing her youth and influence; As someone devoid of both, Lucy can offer her harsher home truths than Elon. A passive-aggressive confrontation begins before the “passive” part is boldly cut away, and this frank and often very funny confrontation between the two women gives Lucy’s half of the novel as surprising and tense as Dylan’s, which mostly revolves around her tentative romance with an unavailable actor. Elmore (Marlon Williams) is lacking. But the two images are complementary nonetheless, as each recognizes the balance that women are expected to find between emotional honesty and smiling reserve. Simon Price’s concise editing exposes these similarities sharply, while Matt Henley’s cold, often hazy lensing often places mother and daughter in the same light and air, even if they are supposedly separate from each other. (The entire production was filmed in New Zealand.)
After the film’s delightful and unexpected climax, Lucy and Dylan’s eventual meeting transforms the film into a quieter, more conversational affair. But even then, some of the conversations are witty and instructive, moving toward a resolution that, if not happy, feels conciliatory and hard-won, while being true to its characters’ flaws and egos. “You’ll have to forgive me,” Lucy tells her daughter, “and then forgive yourself for taking so long to forgive me.” Thus, spiritual enlightenment emerges in the face of toxic narcissism – recognizing that people can only change so much, Englert’s debut finds what catharsis can occur in their best, worst moments.