This film screened at Fantastic Fest 2018.
Those who complained about nothing happening in director David Robert Mitchell’s critically acclaimed It Follows will not be pleased with his follow-up feature film about a guy seeing clues to a grand mystery literally everywhere. While gripping and impeccably shot, Under the Silver Lake has an extra hour of runtime compared to It Follows, yet it’s as pretentious and devoid of meaning as Southland Tales.
Andrew Garfield has now mastered the art of playing a man on the verge of being evicted, after his fantastic performance in 99 Homes. Here he plays Sam, a disaster of a human being who, by his own admission, “does nothing.” One day he decides to talk to his dreamy blonde neighbor, Sarah (Riley Keough), and after a night of getting stoned while watching old movies, they make plans to see each other again the following day. But by the time Sam knocks on her door, she’s gone. No furniture in the apartment, no note, no warning, nothing. Since Sam just met her, he will do the logical thing and immediately decide to investigate her disappearance himself by going deep into a rabbit hole of obsession and paranoia, with only a mysterious symbol left on the wall of Sarah’s apartment as a clue.
Source: IGN.com Under the Silver Lake Review