Review of Tusk (2014) by Giovanni M — 13 Dec 2014

"Well, it's just an old bottle, but if you combine it with the story, then it becomes a-if I may say so-a powerful talisman, a doorway to another time and place, perhaps a drawbridge to history...".

~Howard Howe, aka Bartholomew Moseeay (Michael Parks).

"Let me tell a story.".

~Guy LaPointe (Johnny Depp).

TUSK may be "about" a man who surgically transforms another man into a walrus, but-appropriately for a film inspired by a hoax-it concerns itself more with the duplicitous nature of storytelling. Whether it's a) Wallace (Justin Long) lying to Ally (Génesis Rodríguez) as he cheats on her or b) Ally lying to Wallace as she does the same with Teddy (Haley Joel Osment), everyone in this film tells stories. Ex-detective Guy LaPointe, from his introduction on, spends most of his screen time rambling about some topic or other. The only character whose tongue rivals LaPointe's is "Howard Howe" (the great Parks, in one of his more memorable roles), who spins quite the web to trap young Wallace, who in turn gets caught only because he tells stories for a living: Wallace and Teddy host a podcast called The Not-See Party, and when Wallace's interviewee commits suicide, he turns to Howe as a backup.

Stories gyre within stories. Wallace and Teddy pilfer the stories of others for their listeners' entertainment; LaPointe relays to Ally and Teddy the lies Howe told him, all within the larger context of a film inspired by a fake advertisement. Duplicity invades even the visuals, as writer-director Kevin Smith includes several intentional mistakes as a nod to his Hollywood Babble-On segment "**** We Should Not See." Ally goes to bed wearing one shirt and wakes up wearing another, highlighting the artifice of cinema. Smith-a filmmaker, an author, a podcaster and question-answerer-has crafted a paradox. Like wordsmith William Faulkner had Addie Bundren condemn words as innately untruthful in his 1930 novel As I Lay Dying, storyteller Smith tells a story that tells you the stories you tell may kill you.

An absurd comparison to make when discussing a film about a man who turns another into a walrus? Perhaps. But when discussing a film about a man who turns another into a walrus, absurdity is the dish du jour.

Rent it.

"I don't wanna die in Canada. I don't wanna die at all.".