Novel’s wild plot doesn’t translate
For some reason, “Naked Singularity” was the opening-night selection for this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival. That’s not the only strange phenomenon associated with this disappointing heist caper, which began its New York theatrical run Aug. 6 and comes to Bay Area theaters and video on demand starting Friday, Aug. 13.
I have not read public defender Sergio de la Pava’s award-winning novel “A Naked Singularity,” from which this film is adapted. Review excerpts indicate the author successfully combined wacky humor with his heady critique of America’s inequitable justice system and knowledge about the astrophysics of black holes.
The concept might have worked well on paper. But onscreen, at least as Chase Palmer has directed and co-scripted it, those clashing elements exert weak gravitational pull. It’s not until halfway through the movie that the complex, mildly amusing heist mechanics begin to kick in; by then, viewers’ investment in the proceedings will probably have drifted off into space.
It’s easy to see why an accomplished cast was attracted to this project, though. Characters can be smart and quirky and have reams of juicy sentences to say. It’s like they mimic a Tarantino movie, except the dialogue is overwritten and sounds extra false at the heightened pitch most of the actors were encouraged to use.
“Star Wars” and “Small Axe” star John Boyega is the protagonist, Casi, a (not very good) New York public defender who can justifiably believe that the system is rigged against his poor clients, especially if they’re people of color. Sarcastic Judge Cymbelene (Linda Lavin, having a wicked good time) has it in for Casi and is about to get him disbarred.
But as blackouts, and what Casi perceives as strange dimensional warps, hit the city, Lea (Olivia Cooke), one of his former cases now working a dead-end job at an auto impound yard, comes to him with a blackmail problem. There’s a lot of heroin stashed in a Lincoln Navigator that’s about to go up for auction. Craig (Ed Skrein), a skeezy conspiracy nut Lea wishes she hadn’t swiped right on, wants her to make sure he wins the vehicle.
Craig’s scheme has already cost one of his lovers her life, but Lea thinks she can work this game to her advantage. Casi and Dane — his more daring, fed-up colleague, played with hyper artificiality by Bill Skarsgård — hatch yet another, outlandishly intricate plan to pull a Robin Hood on the whole deal, rebalance the scales of justice and get rich, too.
Cooke comes off best amid all of the busy plotting, consistent with her fine recent performances in the likes of “Little Fish,” “Pixie” and “Sound of Metal.” The English actress obviously digs leaning into a tough, sexy New York cookie, yet Lea is also the film’s most grounded character despite her black lacquered nails and skintight jeans. Cooke makes her the smartest person in the movie as well, to no small degree because she knows when it’s best to keep her mouth shut.
Palmer’s noteworthy previous credit was as a screenwriter for “It,” the hit 2017 movie that starred Skarsgård as Pennywise. The filmmaker certainly chose a feature-directing debut he could pack a lot into. But even as Mexican cartels, Hasidic money launderers, modal realism explanations and a samurai sword pile up around the action, “Naked Singularity” stubbornly refuses to engage.
Quentin Tarantino may be able to make such complicated material sing onscreen, but lots of words, esoteric concepts and dead bodies don’t always work for everybody.