Mothman Prophecies
review by Jessica Bursi

If you see Mark Pellington, congratulate him on creating the world’s longest music video, as his new film, “the Mothman Prophecies,” beats previous champion, “The Cell” by twelve (unnecessary) minutes. Honestly, the film’s omnipresent soundtrack, provided by tomandandy, is quite awesome, but most definitely overused. The heavy tracks and seriously stark lighting create a prolonged sense of foreboding that never entirely dissipates; each scene feels like a nightmare waiting to happen... Richard Gere uses the bathroom. Aaaah! Richard Gere drives his car down a two lane highway. Noooooo!! Richard Gere might kiss Laura Linney! Oh, lord, I just peed myself!

This is not to say that there were no scary moments; there were several. And boy, were they scary?! Unfortunately, like the movie as a whole, the most frightening moment lasted too long. Still, the film was super-effective at achieving an awfully tense mood with its PG-13 rating; letting its audiences’ minds fill in the blanks usually scribbled in by the blood and gore of big brother, R.

As a narrative, I guess the story is about a news reporter whose wife sees something beyond this world and then dies of cancer. He then ends up in a small West Virginia town (for a truly indeterminable amount of time) trying to understand the truth of the Mothman; an otherworldly, omniscient, future teller that appears to unlucky souls in the most frightening ways. While the reporter looks for the divine secrets, he is afforded the amenities of a cute love interest, a curmudgeonly mentor, and even a mentally ill sidekick.

So, that’s the story as I deciphered it between the intensely experimental dissolves and scene to scene transitions. Despite the movie’s lack of clear narrative structure, some “Mothman” provided me with several clairvoyant instincts. . . Oh, they’re going to have sex in that unfurnished house. Yes, he’s going to die. Hmm... was this my Mothman or my quasi- knowledge of the well established conventions of psychological thrillers? You be the judge!

Casting agents (including one of my favs, Georgianne Walken!) did well to give the town of Pt. Pleasant a healthy cast of painfully real players. Even a handsome cat like Will Patton fit in the gruff, working class milieu! Richard Gere was Richard Gere, and I loved him for that. Laura Linney was Laura Linney, and I loved her for that. And Deborah Messing, she was great in her five minutes, but I kept waiting for Will to come and save her from the hell of Mothmania and marriage to a man twenty years older than herself!

The film also had some great cinematography and okay edits, but really felt like a bunch of cool scenes strung together with surreal transitions. However, even though the film seemed at least a half an hour too long, I must say that it wrapped itself up in a nice and tidy fashion; leaving its audience with some closure, but no real answers- just the way we, moviegoing folks, like!

send comments to jessalee@filmbrats.com