Review of Dark Horse (2012) by Mike M — 04 Oct 2011
If Solondz looks to have shucked off some of the ambiguity of his earlier works - their ability to provoke heated debate about authorial tone, and who they were getting at, exactly - his comedy's becoming more deft: he knows he can get a laugh just from the framing of his mismatched lovers, or from blurring out the logo of a toy-store behemoth who clearly decided it wasn't a good idea to associate themselves too closely with the Solondz brand.
He looks, too, to be growing softer with age: we notice the tenderness directed into Miranda and Abe's first kiss, even if it's immediately undercut by the latter's sparing appraisal of same ("Oh my God, that wasn't terrible.
.. it could have been so much worse.")... Maybe the nail-bomb sharpness of the director's more incendiary films has gone, but Solondz remains an acute social observer, and on this evidence, may yet have a career ahead of him as a psychodramatist of some repute - an Ibsen of the American suburbs.
This review of Dark Horse (2012) was written by Mike M on 04 Oct 2011.
Dark Horse has generally received mixed reviews.
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