TONE-DEAF (2019)

Studio:      Saban Films
Director:    Richard Bates Jr.
Writer:      Richard Bates Jr.
Producer:  Lawrence Mattis, Brad Mendelsohn, Matt Smith, Brion Hambel, Paul Jensen
Stars:     Robert Patrick, Amanda Crew, Haley Marie Norman, Johnny Pemberton, Nancy Linehan Charles, AnnaLynne McCord, Ray Wise, Kim Delaney

Review Score:

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Summary:

A struggling young woman spends a getaway weekend in a secluded house owned by a widower on the brink of becoming a psychopath.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

As a little girl, Olive Smith performs a piano recital. Olive’s parents miss the performance when her depressed father Michael hangs himself following an argument with Olive’s mother Crystal.

As an adult, Olive breaks up with her difficult boyfriend York. Olive’s friends Lenore and Blaire console Olive after her sexist boss Asher fires her too. Olive plays a keyboard for her friends, who tell her she is great even though she is tone deaf.

Olive sees a frightening vision of her father in front of the urn holding his ashes. Olive calls her mother Crystal, who lives in a hippie commune, about the incident. Crystal mentions that Michael wanted his ashes scattered into space. Crystal also recommends that her daughter clear her head by getting away for the weekend.

Olive has another haunting vision of her dead father when York comes by with his new girlfriend to pick up his things.

Through Airbnb, widower Harvey Parker rents his remote house to Olive for the weekend. Harvey rants to himself about millennials while mourning at his wife Edith’s homemade grave.

Olive meets Harvey’s family friend Agnes, who later asks Harvey why he is renting out his house. Harvey takes Agnes captive by tying her to a bed in his cabin down the road.

Olive plays Harvey’s piano for her mother over the phone. Harvey sees a vision of his dead wife slitting her throat with a letter opener at the piano while secretly watching Olive play.

Harvey tells Agnes that his estranged son David thinks Harvey suffers from dementia and wants to put him in a home. Harvey reveals that he wants to know what it feels like to kill someone, which is why he set up Olive in his house. Harvey regrets that he has to kill Agnes too because she interfered.

Harvey is unable to kill Olive while she sleeps. Harvey hears Edith’s voice telling him to stop. Harvey puts a spider in Olive’s contact lens case.

Fellow commune member Uriah professes his attraction to Crystal. Crystal allows Uriah to go down on her while she texts Olive.

Harvey returns to Agnes. Agnes angers Harvey by claiming he trapped his wife in their marriage by lording custody of their son over Edith. Harvey suddenly stabs Agnes to death.

Unaware that Olive rented the house, David comes by to pick up his prototypes for a Shark Tank pitch. Startled by his unannounced appearance, Olive compels David to leave.

Harvey follows Olive to The Cowboy Palace Saloon where she meets her Tinder date James. A news bulletin on TV reports on a missing woman. Harvey sees James secretly drug Olive’s rum and Coke, but Olive doesn’t drink it. Olive instead invites James to join her at the house for dinner later.

Harvey follows James back to his nearby motel room. Harvey murders James with a hammer. Harvey finds a captive woman in James’ closet and kills her too.

Olive buys LSD from the attendant at a makeshift car wash. While tripping back at the house, Olive sees visions of various ex-boyfriends before her father finally appears to her. Michael talks about Crystal and his depression before urging his daughter to choose better boyfriends and get rid of his ashes. Michael adds that Olive is great at playing piano.

York calls to tell Olive that he made a mistake and wants her back. Olive hangs up on him.

Harvey murders a homeless man on his way to the house. Harvey cuts the house’s power, crushes Olive’s glasses, and lays boards spiked with nails on the staircase.

Harvey wakes Olivia by loudly playing the radio. Frightened, Olive texts her mother for help before her phone goes dead.

Seeing an opportunity to make things right with Olive, Crystal drives to the house with Uriah. Their car gets a flat tire on the way, but David stops to help them fix it.

Olive arms herself with the letter opener Edith used to commit suicide. The spider bites Olive when she tries putting in her contacts. Harvey calls Olive downstairs. Unable to see, Olive steps on one of the nails. Olive stabs Harvey with the letter opener when he attacks. Olive tries to hide, but Harvey crushes her foot and knocks her unconscious.

Olive recovers to find that Harvey dressed her in Edith’s clothes and seated her at the piano. Harvey forces Olive to play like his wife used to do. Harvey hears Edith’s voice and sees a vision of Edith as a ghoul. Harvey smashes the piano with a tomahawk when he realizes Olive is tone deaf, which Olive never knew.

Crystal and Uriah arrive at the house. Harvey kills Uriah. Crystal shoots Harvey to the ground, although she accidentally shoots her daughter too. Olive kills Harvey by stabbing him with the letter opener.

Crystal tells Olive that she is terrible at playing piano and now realizes it was wrong to falsely encourage her. Olive curses baby boomers and calls 911 for an ambulance. David later surveys the crime scene with his boyfriend.

Olive and Crystal try scattering Michael’s ashes using a toy rocket that falls limply to the ground. The women walk away confident that Michael would have appreciated the effort anyway.

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Click here for Culture Crypt’s interview with “Tone-Deaf” director Richard Bates Jr.

Review:

After four feature films, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to find new ways of putting writer/director Richard Bates Jr.’s unique work into words. Bates’ peculiar horror-humor hybrids rebelliously spit at the idea of fitting into conventional categories. In the past, I’ve analogized his movies using references to Wes Anderson, David Lynch, John Waters, Scooby-Doo, Pixie Stix candy, and Maker’s Mark whisky, most of which are interchangeably accurate when discussing Bates’ oeuvre.

Looking back at my reviews of Bates’ 2014 film “Suburban Gothic” (review here) and 2016’s “Trash Fire” (review here), it’s interesting to see some prognostication about his career trajectory coming to fruition. Arrogance would like to believe those idle musings had some influence on that arc. In reality, “Tone-Deaf” reflects a logical progression of Ricky Bates Jr.’s creative mindset as well as a darker maturity to the tone of his satiric thrillers.

Following up on the high school timeframe of his 2012 debut “Excision,” Bates set “Suburban Gothic” in the transitional period of post-college adulthood. “Suburban Gothic’s” cartoony humor borrows a bit from Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s brand of boner jokes, toilet gags, and other such low-hanging fruits. Deliberately clichéd characters and slapdash special effects further the film’s feel of being a snarky lark. Although “Suburban Gothic” is endearingly enjoyable as lightly lowbrow camp, at the time I said I’d like to see future features boomerang back to “Excision’s” disquietingly eccentric texture.

The indie auteur obliged by raising the stakes of seriousness with “Trash Fire.” “Trash Fire” still brushes itself with black comedy, yet it features a mean streak “Suburban Gothic” definitely doesn’t have. Perhaps that stems from the film advancing the evolution of Bates’ timeline by taking a jaded look at life through codependent coupling. In that review, I lamented that “Trash Fire” uncoiled “Suburban Gothic’s” bouncy spring by meandering in inessential asides and long lingers on single takes. The middle finger seemingly raised in convention’s direction made for a mood that said, “if ‘Suburban Gothic’ was too tame, choke on this angrier attitude instead.”

Having finally arrived at “Tone-Deaf,” Bates’ fiction now fits into a post-breakup stage where one has to find his/her identity through independence again. “Tone-Deaf” follows Olive, an average Angelino who just jettisoned her deadweight boyfriend, but got canned by her sleazy boss too. In a way, Olive wishes she had the free spirit of her mother Crystal, who joined a Luddite hippie commune following the suicide of Olive’s father, who hanged himself while Olive was off performing a childhood piano recital.

Friends tell Olive to clear her head by getting away for the weekend. Olive takes that advice by renting a remote home from a weirdo widower. Harvey hasn’t posted his house on Airbnb before. However, his troubled mind has a disturbing itch he intends to scratch with a wayward woman. Olive’s isolated vacation of flipping through Tinder, tripping on acid, and unknowingly setting herself up for a saloon stalker becomes legitimately life threatening when Harvey makes Olive a central figure for fulfilling a deranged fantasy.

As is par for the course for a Ricky Bates Jr. joint, “Tone-Deaf” takes place in a sideways version of reality populated by quietly quirky people. In addition to funneling every drip of drama, violence, and jocularity through the director’s distinct vision, convincingly creating this askew world comes down to equally quirky casting.

“Tone-Deaf” assembles yet another eclectic roster of venerable veterans and rising talents. Characters like Harvey and Crystal don’t have to be developed more deeply than necessary because of what Robert Patrick and Kim Delaney bring by virtue of their personas being already engraved in our minds. Amanda Crew capably covers her end of the deal by making Olive sassy, sad, sympathetic, and strong without allowing her annoyed ennui to become alienating. “Tone-Deaf” wouldn’t work without these particular people coloring an austere atmosphere using dialed-in acting.

Like Richard Bates Jr.’s previous films, “Tone-Deaf” isn’t in any hurry to hit its finish line, although its patient pace benefits from the lessons learned by earlier efforts bouncing between opposite ends of a cinematic spectrum. Techniques in “Tone-Deaf” are tighter. Crisper editing comes much quicker. One-and-done characters aren’t just cameos for famous friends either. Minor moments pile on purpose to larger themes or offer quick hits of humor.

Additional evidence of ongoing evolution across all of Bates’ films comes when I remember noting that “Trash Fire” had an odd trait of actors coming bizarrely close to delivering dialogue directly at the camera. “Tone-Deaf” goes all the way. Robert Patrick specifically stares down the barrel of the lens while reciting hateful monologues about millennials from the perspective of a pissed off baby boomer.

To tell the truth, it’s difficult to determine exactly what demons Bates intends to exorcise with his script. Harvey rants and scowls about fedora-wearing hipsters, “coexist” bumper stickers, and skinny margaritas at brunch while Olive takes turns griping about coastal elitism and cultural appropriation. In earlier films, it was easier to identify what Bates wanted to get off his chest. Here, some of the scathing slams come off so superficially, it’s uncertain if Bates is just stuffing the screenplay with buzzwords or truly means to swipe at hot topic terms. Even then, I can’t quite tell whose side he is on.

Much of this review repeatedly references Richard Bates Jr. and focuses on his full filmography because that remains the best lens for framing any one of his movies on an individual basis. “Tone-Deaf” tautly toes a line between the nuttiness of “Suburban Gothic” and the relative bleakness of “Trash Fire.” Finding that middle ground, the comedic chiller takes a canted angle toward telling an angsty tale about coping with depression in a frighteningly changing world. Even if certain themes come across a little foggy, “Tone-Deaf” clearly has confidence on the execution side of the equation.

I’ll say the same as I have before. If the previously mentioned titles are unfamiliar, “Tone-Deaf” might not be the ideal jumping on point for getting your feet wet in the weird worlds of Ricky Bates Jr. But if his other three films personally struck relatable chords for biting commentary as well as unsettling entertainment, “Tone-Deaf” assuredly will too.

Review Score: 70

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