Images courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment
MAGIC HOUR— 3 STARS
To get things started in Magic Hour, director and star Katie Aselton presents a cell phone video of a couple on a date at a carnival. The more adventurous woman, Erin (Aselton herself), is trying to talk her acrophobic significant other, Charlie (Hamilton star Daveed Diggs), into mustering up the courage to ride the tall seafront Ferris wheel. In equally cute measures, she’s massaging his confidence to face his fear while coaxing him suggestively that “it’s going to be so sexy.” Sure enough, Erin gets him on the ride where Charlie shares exasperations and eventually affectionate kisses with his squeeze.
After a sudden flash forward in time, Magic Hour formally introduces the couple on-screen in an entirely different mood. The two are arriving at a vacation home outside Palm Springs, California, near the picturesque rocky landscape of Joshua Tree National Park. Erin’s friend, Marshall (the loquacious treasure that is Brad Garrett), is helping Erin with her bags after prepping the place. All the chatter is about the “healing magic of the desert” to calm “all the crap you’re going through.”
The temper is tenuous between Erin and Charlie, aided by an oxymoronic score of creepy serenity by Mini Mansions bandmates Zach Dawes and Tyler Parkford. Gone are the giggles and sexiness from the home video that opened the film. She can’t stop thinking about something, and it shatters her composure and focus. With all the assuaging effort he can, Charlie is trying his damndest to say the right thing and shift the creeping anger with casual distractions and a disarming personality. Nothing of gladness is working, shot down by her line of “How are you so fucking calm?”
LESSON #1: WHAT CAN DERAIL SOMEONE TO BECOME THIS STATE?— During this opening reel of Magic Hour, our watchful opinions as the audience immediately try to investigate what happened or what is wrong. Erin’s body language and speech scream trauma, yet we wonder about her question of calmness to her husband, too. Whatever they are working through is heavy, and possibly centered on Erin, because any approval of talking points, activities, or even the executive functioning of where their luggage should be has to go through her and meet her comfort level.
The overall topic for this attitude is a mystery for the first twenty minutes. For a while there in Magic Hour, one wonders how long a dialogue-driven movie can hold this mystery with masked clues and vague conversations that beat around the bush. Could another flashback video of a failed pregnancy test be the first major clue? The tension is so high that it would be great to have an answer sooner rather than later. Erin’s hurt is quickly becoming our own.
Well, the script from Katie Aselton and her indie filmmaker mainstay husband Mark Duplass (Biosphere, Language Lessons) doesn’t leave you in suspense for long, and the revelation is a doozy. The fact of the matter is (and, with apologies, this borderline spoiler is necessary) Charlie is dead. She is talking to either his ghost or a figment of her imagination. Now knowing the full scenario, Magic Hour proceeds as an intervention for Erin to overcome grief.
The seismic disclosure recolors the sentiment, setting, and stakes of Magic Hour instantly. Marshall and Erin’s mother (fellow treasure and TV vet Susan Sullivan) are doing their best to provide Erin with this remote getaway of calm solace and granted space. Other people enter Magic Hour to guide Erin through her pain, but the one figure she’s responding to and divulging her worries to the most remains the present spectre of Charlie, giving Daveed Diggs a surreal performance of grace and comfort.
Without a doubt, Magic Hour’s course tiptoing between domestic mumblecore drama and Swayze-ian romantic fantasy that knowingly name-drops Ghost is a tricky one. This is tedious territory, culturally and spiritually. A large swath of viewers will think this film is trite, weak, meandering, or even nutty. The rest may find something special in this worthwhile walkabout of reflection.
LESSON #2: TALKING TO GHOSTS— There’s a very simple test for the acceptance and appeal of Magic Hour. It is one’s willingness to believe in or talk to a ghost. Those who do or would are here for this movie. They romanticize and yearn for the prospect of forever or life after death. The presence of a loved one watching over them after they’ve departed fills a void and can bring unimaginable uplift, even if they are fully aware of the semi-problematic psychological dependency and unhealthy ramifications of that mindset.
LESSON #3: THE EFFECT OF MIDDLE-AGED GRIEF— Katie Aselton leads this painful passage with a strong performance that encompasses a wide range of valid, convincing emotions. This is a tragedy firmly in its middle age. A broken young heart has plenty of room to heal, and a senior can rest on their reasonably finished efforts without needing a replacement, per se. However, hurt and loss at this age is worse because there’s as much uncertain time lost as there is left. The dismissive “Oh, you’ll find someone new” encouragement doesn’t immediately work here. The best new bloom in Magic Hour comes from Garrett’s sage advice of “Life is just too fucking beautiful, sweet girl.” Right on, sir.
Maybe the middle ground for Magic Hour towards the idea of ghosts is, positive or negative, the freedom to let each person process death in their own way, privately, meaning a communal trip to the movies or the streaming couch might not be the best place for that undertaking. Some people aren’t good with fantasized grief around strangers any better than the real thing around loved ones. Yet, we all sure showed up in 36 years ago for Demi and Patrick, so it can bring folks together when done well. In the end, let those people who click with Lesson #2 have Magic Hour and movies like it. Grant them that cathartic version of movie escapism because there is a safe and welcome place for that.
LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#1392)
