Viena and the Fantomes (2020)

(On Cable TV, March 2021) What a terrible movie. I’m not kidding. Viena and the Fantomes is just an unpleasant, useless and ugly movie throughout. I wasn’t expecting much, but I was definitely expecting something better from a 1980s drama featuring a roadie travelling cross-country with a punk band. I would have liked a period atmosphere, some good music, likable characters, some kind of compelling narrative and elements of a touring drama… you know: the basics. Instead, what we have here is a film shot in grainy monotones featuring lifeless (or unlikable) characters engaged in meaningless melodrama. There’s barely any music nor plot nor atmosphere. It may be realistic in that I imagine tour life being as grimy and dirty and dispiriting as this, but that’s not why I watch movies. The cast features known names (in-between Caleb Landry Jones, Evan Rachel Wood and Dakota Fanning), but they’re not used very well: I was watching largely for Zoë Kravitz, but she barely shows up. The only way this film is impressive is in seeing how it wastes nearly everything it has at its disposal. You would think that a love triangle set against a 1980s touring punk band would be far more interesting, but instead you get interminable shots of a moody young woman being depressed in a trailer in the desert. (I’m not exaggerating by much.)  Writer-director Gerardo Naranjo can’t be bothered to demonstrate even basic storytelling or directing competency, leaving the entire result floating without anchors or hooks to draw viewers in. The film’s production history reportedly stretched over six years, but from what’s on-screen I’m dubious that anything could have been salvaged at any point: there’s such a lack of content throughout the entire running time. In most rock band dramas, there’s usually a thirty-second moment where the band wakes up from the previous night’s party with a hangover, everything is awful and they all realize how they have to mend their ways in time for a happy ending. In many ways, Viena and the Fantomes is that thirty seconds stretched over 96 minutes, but without the fun partying or the happy ending.