Support Shadows: Buy a Poster

There's a lot of cinematic trickery going on in the storyline, with key elements and characters using puns for names and doing very odd things. It's also strangely reminiscent of lots of movies, although you can't put your finger on just one (David Lynch meets the Coen Brothers, perhaps). Performances are solid; even the more comical or absurd characters have moments of honest emotion. And there's a lot going on here regarding life and death, moving on, progress and just the whole Middle America thing in the 1950s. The film also has a dreamlike quality that continually undermines our expectations. On the other hand, this refuses to let us ever get a grip on the film in any meaningful way. The Polish brothers may be too clever for their own good; this film feels self-indulgent, like an inside joke we could never get without reading a book about the film. Still, it's striking to look at, gorgeously filmed and wonderfully human, in a sort of otherworldly way. Beautiful nonsense.