“Oh my god…. You’re telling me that in the middle of this ontological or epistemological fucking crisis that your safety net is Trizzlers!?”
I thought this was merely okay on a first watch. On a rewatch, I understand it for how brilliant it is. I understood it as an exploration of social anxiety presented with its claustrophobic low-budget mumblecore filmmaking style. However, now I see it as so much more than that. Frownland is action versus inaction and the societal connection and disconnection thereof. There is social anxiety and then there is the social anxiety that is self-imposed, one borne of treating yourself and others around you like a comparative study.
Keith’s social anxiety is truly a manifestation of deeper-rooted issues. However, he is active, much to the chagrin of others. They reject him and spurn him and ridicule him and abuse him. He can’t help himself and is hard for others to manage being around. Despite that, he is on top of everything in his life as much as he can be. He is responsible, but misunderstood by others and he has trouble expressing himself on top of that. His actions are alienate him from his younger girlfriend and his rather antagonistic “friend” that he visits constantly. And yet he understands himself as his difficulty managing himself as the problem, going to therapy to get to the root of things.
We spend most of our time with Keith, suffering his presence, but then roughly two-thirds of the way through, our focus shifts to Charles. When first introduced it seems like Charles is just another “victim” of knowing Keith, but it becomes clear that Keith has anxieties of his own, anxieties that he doesn’t actually work toward, pushing people away and positioning himself as smarter and “above it all” - at least in his own mind. When away from Keith we see truly how much more insufferable he is. If I had a choice between Charles and Keith, I’m hanging with Keith. Charles has nothing to offer. He knows it, he is capable of changing that, and yet doesn’t.
It’s a great hat-trick, getting us to like and empathize with someone who we spent most of the movie disliking at worst or being mildly disturbed by at best. By the time we see how inept Charles is and how he takes it out on Keith we are positioned to better understand Keith and his position, his lot in life that makes it difficult for him to truly be in control in the way that he should be. As a different person, Keith would be a successful individual. A high-strung individual, sure, but a successful individual still.
The final moments of the film, presented in chaotic, cacophonic splendor, encapsulate that loss of control and how helpless Keith is. He needs help, he’s not getting it. Not from his girlfriend, not from his “friend”, not from his employer that forces him to work against his weaknesses, not from his roommate. All he can do is get away, isolate himself further, worsening his situation. And meanwhile, Charles will have found some sort of safety net, something afforded to him that Keith cannot get, despite of how much worse a person he is, simply because Charles is not immediately identifiable as mentally disabled. The clean, seemingly knowledgeable Charles versus the dirty, rambling Keith.
It’s awful and it’s not fair.
“Oh my god…. You’re telling me that in the middle of this ontological or epistemological fucking crisis that your safety net is Trizzlers!?”
I thought this was merely okay on a first watch. On a rewatch, I understand it for how brilliant it is. I understood it as an exploration of social anxiety presented with its claustrophobic low-budget mumblecore filmmaking style. However, now I see it as so much more than that. Frownland is action versus inaction and the societal connection and disconnection thereof. There is social anxiety and then there is the social anxiety that is self-imposed, one borne of treating yourself and others around you like a comparative study.
Keith’s social anxiety is truly a manifestation of deeper-rooted issues. However, he is active, much to the chagrin of others. They reject him and spurn him and ridicule him and abuse him. He can’t help himself and is hard for others to manage being around. Despite that, he is on top of everything in his life as much as he can be. He is responsible, but misunderstood by others and he has trouble expressing himself on top of that. His actions are alienate him from his younger girlfriend and his rather antagonistic “friend” that he visits constantly. And yet he understands himself as his difficulty managing himself as the problem, going to therapy to get to the root of things.
We spend most of our time with Keith, suffering his presence, but then roughly two-thirds of the way through, our focus shifts to Charles. When first introduced it seems like Charles is just another “victim” of knowing Keith, but it becomes clear that Keith has anxieties of his own, anxieties that he doesn’t actually work toward, pushing people away and positioning himself as smarter and “above it all” - at least in his own mind. When away from Keith we see truly how much more insufferable he is. If I had a choice between Charles and Keith, I’m hanging with Keith. Charles has nothing to offer. He knows it, he is capable of changing that, and yet doesn’t.
It’s a great hat-trick, getting us to like and empathize with someone who we spent most of the movie disliking at worst or being mildly disturbed by at best. By the time we see how inept Charles is and how he takes it out on Keith we are positioned to better understand Keith and his position, his lot in life that makes it difficult for him to truly be in control in the way that he should be. As a different person, Keith would be a successful individual. A high-strung individual, sure, but a successful individual still.
The final moments of the film, presented in chaotic, cacophonic splendor, encapsulate that loss of control and how helpless Keith is. He needs help, he’s not getting it. Not from his girlfriend, not from his “friend”, not from his employer that forces him to work against his weaknesses, not from his roommate. All he can do is get away, isolate himself further, worsening his situation. And meanwhile, Charles will have found some sort of safety net, something afforded to him that Keith cannot get, despite of how much worse a person he is, simply because Charles is not immediately identifiable as mentally disabled. The clean, seemingly knowledgeable Charles versus the dirty, rambling Keith.
It’s awful and it’s not fair.
