Film: Dark Horse

Abe (Jordan Gelber) is a child in a man's body. Obsessed by toys, hugely overweight and still working for, and living with, his parents, he is one of life's losers. His social awkwardness is displayed right from the off when he is sitting at a table at a wedding celebration while everyone else is on the dance floor and tries to strike up conversation with a charming lady just next to him. To be fair to Abe, what he did not know was that Miranda (Selma Blair) is manic depressive and that whatever he would have shouted to her above the music would not have won much reaction. Despite that fact that she did not respond to his advance, Abe pursues her at the end of the party and manages, painfully, to get her number.

Things with the two move pretty quickly without anything really happening between them mainly because neither seem to have much experience and each seems relieved to have found the other, even if it is not clear whether Miranda really cares for Abe. All the while, Abe is getting increasingly frustrated working for his father Jackie (Christopher Walken) and his mother Phyllis (Mia Farrow) tries her best to comfort her son, somewhat oblivious to his immaturity.

Understandably frustrated with life in general and possibly (if he even noticed) with Miranda's distant nature, Abe has a series of hallucinations involving his father's secretary where this frustration at his perceived unfair situation is vented. It must be said that these are immensely difficult to follow and when at a late stage we see that Abe has in fact been in a coma, our understanding of the film becomes all the more hazy; it just doesn't seem to add up.

There is no criticising the performances of the cast, in particular the leads, however, much of the story and interest lies in the first half of the film and the rest seems forced and drawn out, not to mention confusing. Perhaps it is one of those films which has to be seen a couple of times.

Dark Horse is out this week on DVD

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