Continuing our new series of film reviews where Roudi reviews films in under 451 words, we bring you her thoughts on UNDER THE SILVER LAKE

“You ask me if there’ll come a time
When I grow tired of you
Never my love
Never my love…”

Over these lyrics, Under the Silver Lake begins on the front window of a coffee shop with “BEWARE THE DOG KILLER” written on it. The camera pushes closer, forcing us to focus on the word DOG which we see in reverse from the inside: it reads GOD. We turn to the costumers in the line, waiting for their dosage of caffeine in a hipster coffee shop and among them is Sam (Andrew Garfield). Shaggy haired and looking tired, he’s staring at the same image we saw in the opening. Then he notices the young female baristas and through his ogle the main theme of the movie is revealed; the male gaze, but don’t know this just yet. Sam walks back home and a dead squirrel falls from the sky in front of him. An ominous message from the universe, but he still doesn’t know this. And like the reverse word on the window, what Sam and the viewer see are just clues for an unexpected bizarre story.

Sam’s daily routine after his lame breakfast consists of slacking and spying on his neighbors. Like Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” hero, his voyeuristic gaze at his neighbors happens through binoculars; the topless bird lady next door and occasional swimmers in the complex among them.

That very day a newcomer, Sarah (Riley Keough), goes to the pool and Sam instantly gets infatuated by her old Hollywood glam and charm. That night fireworks inexplicably happen in L.A., Sam gets to meet Sarah in person, and he falls in love with her, and she disappears mysteriously the next day. Sam starts a frantic search to gather all the clues in the course of a few hard sleepless days and nights to find her.

Like Sam’s apartment, the movie is filled with old Hollywood images and references. But unlike movies like La La Land that glorify and worship Hollywood, Under the Silver Lake boldly condemns the male gaze in general and in particular Hollywood and media’s horrifying patriarchy that sucks in the women, chews them up and spits out what’s left as expired and ruined goods.

David Robert Mitchell has planted a crazy number clues in his movie tat point to this theme. From Lynchian ones like the hobo sign similar to the broken owl symbol in Twin Peaks, to a very familiar Lynch actor, Patrick Fischler, as well as strange map clues in Los Angeles, Film Noir tropes, the repetition of the number 3, subliminal codes, conspiracy theories about the entertainment industry, and on and on. By the end of the film you might very well agree that: “…For now the answer remains hidden, deep below the surface, under the silver lake…”