Felt (Movie Review)

Movies in every genre get knocked for being too literal when their characters speak plainly and often about the issues that permeate their lives. The dark horror dramedy Felt falls in this category (the issue: sexual trauma), but it breaks screenwriting rules to make a significant point. Creators Amy Everson and Jason Banker are not only capturing a cultural moment where visibility and openness are more available to survivors than they’ve ever been, they’re also exploring how mere awareness is not enough to keep horror at bay.

The visual centerpieces of Felt, and the most obvious source of its title, are the beautiful, twisted pieces of art with which Amy fills her life (continuing the quasi-documentary blurring Banker also brought to his previous movie Toad Road, artist Amy Everson co-wrote the screenplay, acts as the lead, and all of the art is her own). They range from mustachioed Hitler fetuses that fit in her hand to an elaborate series of costumes with huge plush genitals. The movie does Amy service, as an artist and a woman, to keep from suggesting that she’s found some sort of tawdry inspiration from the violence she’s survived, or that her craft is somehow ‘helping’ her, but it’s undeniable that it has affected her choice of subject matter.

What exactly happened to Amy is never specified in detail, nor should it be (where are survivors safe from the burden of proof, if not fiction?) From the movie’s outset it’s clear that Amy struggles with feeling hidden and exposed all at once. She dons bizarre costumes she makes for herself, she gets a job as a mascot advertising fast food in a seven foot chicken suit, and, in the film’s best scene, she answers an ad for a pornographic photo shoot, shows up wearing an hysterically large felt vagina, and successfully convinces the other model to fart on the photographer’s pillow. But even with an outlet for her talent, supportive friends and a partner she trusts, low grade panic and outrage pursue Amy everywhere.

Felt makes worthwhile observations that are isolated when they could be more interconnected, and not all of it is as irreverently original as the photo shoot. It’s a small, successful experiment that doesn’t always feel, as a movie, quite as compactly, wildly potent as the art it showcases. But it’s shrewdly provocative, and while Amy’s unexpected, shocking violence in the final scene may seem like a cop out, it’s actually one hell of a gambit. The filmmakers dare you to tell her it isn’t fair.