Visioneers: Misery, Discomfort & Chronic Uncertainty Love(s) Company

Most of us have seen it all before… The everyman character, struggling to remain in control of a rapidly deteriorating situation while trapped in the unnerving dystopia of an all-too-likely and not-so-distant future. We’ve seen Terry Gilliam’s brilliant and heartbreaking Brazil. We met an unspoken social requirement by enduring The Matrix and traversed a rite of passage by seeing Stanley Kubrik’s disturbingly violent A Clockwork Orange. Some of us even go back far enough to remember B-listers like Logan's Run, the original Rollerball, A Boy and His Dog and a good number of similar films that were mass produced during the 1970’s, interpreting the future as a world full of technological wonders that most often culminate in humanity adopting a less than ideal level of detachment from itself. The general idea behind Visioneers is certainly nothing new, but the execution is a fine mix of the delightfully fresh and the hauntingly familiar.

Written and directed by brothers and first-timers Brandon and Jared Drake, Visioneers seems to serve mostly as a platform for musician/comedian/actor Zach Galifianakis (George) to exhibit his seemingly natural gift of portraying a visibly sad individual, driven to erratic animation by overwhelming emotional turmoil and who, in the grander scheme of things, is simply trying to hold on the very best he can. Judy Greer is terrific as Michelle, George's distracted and disinterested wife, whose obsession with following a heavily regimented, multi-step program to happiness merely amplifies her dissatisfaction with every aspect of her life. Though the script is somewhat relegated to a secondary role behind the lead’s facial expressions and body language, the weighty performances manage to still ring true and the solemn, yet understated musical score draws all of the film's orbiting elements closer to it's central message and fits them together like puzzle pieces just dumped out of the box. Though there are certainly some very funny elements to the film, their emphasis is placed in subtle disposition to the overall hopelessness of the film and are mostly the sort of thing that cause you to smile in recognition rather than laugh out loud. But this allows for the focus to remain centered on George’s obvious discomfort and his growing uncertainty about his future and the looming question of whether or not he wishes to participate however it may unfold.

This film may not be for everyone. Bear in mind that Peter Weir’s 1998 film, The Truman Show brought me to tears where most everyone else in the theater was just trying to wring the usual good laugh out of Jim Carrey. I attribute that partly to the American audience’s inability to recognize when they’re being thumbed in the eye by a foreign director, but mostly because as a filmgoer, I often relate somehow to characters who are disjointed and unhappy even in what appear on the surface as idyllic settings. Throughout this film, I found myself thinking; “God, I feel like that all the time” like when George is sitting sadly at his desk, surrounded by equally uncertain, level-three coworkers, or when he suffers a meltdown at home and attacks the nearest inanimate object, an innocent roll of paper towels. More significantly, I'm a sucker for comedic actors in more dramatic roles. I feel that you often get a more honest portrayal from someone whose chosen profession requires that they be "on" all the time; that they be upbeat and funny even when they may be having a terrible time. In the case of Zach Galifianakis and his performance in Visioneers, that theory holds true and despite what may be a familiar if not tired theme, the results are worth the time.