Indie Memphis Film Festival: Randy Moore's Escape from Tomorrow

Already infamous for its sneaky production (shot without permits, guerrilla style, at both domestic Disney theme parks), Randy Moore's promising debut Escape from Tomorrow is a difficult movie to categorize. I've read comparisons to David Lynch, The Twilight Zone, Luis Buñuel, and even seen it described as a straight up black comedy; I have a hard time disagreeing with any of those. My initial reaction to it was hard to pin. This is an often unpleasant movie to watch and its structure is a bit wobbly (both of which I think are intentional), but I walked out unable to shake it. The movie is filled with unsettling and eerie images, some of which are achieved simply through the ominous black and white photography. Regardless of whether you like the movie or not, it's pretty safe to say you'll never look at these parks the same way again.

Jim (Roy Abramsohn) begins the last day of his rocky family vacation with chilly wife, Emily (Elena Schuber), and his bratty children (Katelynn Rodriguez and Jack Dalton) by receiving some unfortunate news. The moment he hangs up the phone, the ticker for the time bomb starts, as the rest of the day will consist of Jim slowly losing a grip on everything, and it's made worse by the fact he has to spend it at "The Happiest Place on Earth." It's obvious that even before the morning's phone call the trip was a drag for Jim. But as soon as he and his family enter the park, his mind unravels. Moore's decision to shoot in black and white is ingenious, because it strips away all the happy and appealing colors and gives the good cheer a condescending, dangerous quality. It's as if we're seeing this world through Jim's tainted eyes. Things get worse once the family starts going on rides; the sunny characters on display develop demonic eyes, and Jim's family members began to say hateful things to him (perhaps his psyche's way of accepting that he is tired of being a husband and a father, both of which are shown through his actions).

Later in the course of Jim's surreal day, a strange lady tells him that you can't be happy all the time, a statement that perfectly sums up Escape from Tomorrow. The desire of the Disney parks to basically force feed happiness down its visitors' throats is what sends Jim over the edge. It becomes difficult to tell what he actually is experiencing and what is a hallucination, but what is clear is that he's having a negative reaction to the vibe of his surroundings. Moore makes the situations Jim finds himself in weirder and weirder, with some being more successful than others. A highlight is a visit to a nurse's office that would fit perfectly into a Lynchian Universe, as is a night time ride on a tram that is lit only by a Mickey Mouse balloon. Less effective is a scene involving a lab and a bizarre mind reading session.

The middle portion of the movie is the most laborious to sit through. Jim spends the day obsessing over two teenage girls (Danielle Safady and Annet Mahendru), which is appropriately desperate and creepy, but eventually becomes tiresome, especially once he gets caught. But the movie rebounds in the last third with a truly peculiar encounter that shows what happens when you spend your life believing in the fantasy worlds Disney creates (and how it affects your kids), and from there leads to a conclusion I didn't see coming but is...kind of perfect. It's a brilliantly nasty way to cap off Escape from Tomorrow, a movie that, for all its faults, is a remarkable achievement given what was pulled off under such tight constraints. Randy Moore is a filmmaker of considerable imagination, and I have a feeling with more freedom, he could make something truly special. There are images in this movie I will not forgot and wouldn't mind seeing again, which is more than I can say for most of the movies in a given year. That it exists at all is something of a minor miracle, and an inspiring one.





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