I've always had a problem as a child to be happy when my parents - often just my mother - made me do fun stuff. Celebrating my birthday, going to the zoo or the circus...or spending a day at an amusement park. There’s not many amusement parks - or theme parks - in Sweden, at least compared to the United States. But I can easily put myself in Escape from Tomorrow, in it’s use of Disney Land and Disney World as a horrifying, shallow, fake, plastic background to the melodrama of a couple on the brink to madness. As you all know Escape from Tomorrow was shot guerrilla style in these locations, and the nerve-wracking tension doing that is present in the movie itself. But it’s hard to describe in words.
Jim (Roy Abramsohn) and Emily (Elena Schuber) have just arrived to Disney World, Florida, with their two kids Sara and Elliot. While admiring the view from the balcony Jim gets a call from his boss: he’s fired. Trying to cope with this he pretends like nothing and goes on a journey into the world of Disney, only to find himself trapped in a nightmare - hallucinations, more and more aggressive spoken exchanges with Emily and two french teenage girls who he starts to fantasizing about about. The longer they stay on the grounds, the crazier his visions gets - or are they just visions…?
I mean, I hate amusement parks. Not because they have clowns or whatever, its that they’re there to force humans to pretend to be happy and have fun. Nothing bores me more than fake entertainment, so even in movies and music. It’s easy to spot the emptiness in it, and it becomes even clearer if you look around and see all the stressed mothers and fathers, trying to cope with their kids unreal expectations - and their own feelings about spending one or several days in a place only constructed for them to spend money. All this is visible in Escape from Tomorrow, so is the heart-aching melodrama between Jim and Emily (Roy and Elena is perfect in the parts, and you can sense that their own stress shooting a movie like this makes them very, very spot-on in their performances. I guess there wasn't much time for several takes), which is something that is very real.
The movie goes of course further than being a relationship drama. Most of it is shot inside the amusement parks, with clever and sometimes horrifying changes made with digital effects to the countless plastic figures smiling at you. Along the way it blends this drama with sci-fi and kidnapping, darkness of the human minds - not only Jim’s and Emily’s, but several other characters. It might seem a bit done to tell yet another story about a middle-aged man loosing the grip on reality, himself and his family, but the acting from Roy Abramsohn puts the character in a spot where we really don’t support his pathetic erotic mind-escapades with teenage girls, we the audience is instead on the same side as Emily. Jim is a loser and he can’t help it, but it’s told through the eyes of someone - us - who can’t shake it off that’s his somehow a victim of his own decisions.
I don’t think Escape from Tomorrow is a perfect film, but there’s a reason for it. It’s shot in a way where it’s impossible to make it perfect, in secret on the property owned by one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world, a company which spells G R E E D. It’s shocking how much director Randy Moore and his crew got from their countless visits to the amusement parks. It’s brave, it’s very brave! If you’re familiar with history of the movie you WILL be on the edge of your seat not just because of the drama, but also because you know how close it was for the actors and crew to get caught doing this. This is not the first someone have done this. In 2002 Reflections of Evil was released, the brilliant and fucking insane drama by Damon Packard (please, someone, give him a couple of millions!). Parts of it was shot, if I remember it correctly, at Universal Studios in LA (I think, please correct me if I’m wrong) and he transformed one of the rides to a Shindler’s List ride, with Nazi tour guides and everything!
Doing what Randy Moore did is a risky move, because I found myself several times focusing only on the fact that they was shooting in secret instead on the actual drama, which I guess wasn't the purpose. Thankfully a great cast and clever storytelling hides the gimmick most of the times and gives us some stellar and surreal drama.
I’m not totally sure who the movie wants to reach, which in my opinion is a good thing. It creates a sense of instability on the life of the viewer; from the drama, the guerrilla-style film-making and deep inside, our fear of making a huge beloved corporation upset and sad, even if they don’t that sympathy.
Oh, and I hated amusement parks as a child. I couldn't stand them. Mostly because I could see how everyone around me acted. Happy Happy Joy Joy... or not. It's all fake, friends. All fake.
Escape from Tomorrow is out from Njuta Films in Sweden NOW. Go get it.
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