Review: Faults
It would not be entirely unreasonable, based on the opening debrief of writer-director Riley Stearns' debut feature Faults, to expect a black comedy centering on a born loser about to add another notch of failure on his belt. Ansel Roth (Leland Orser) is depicted as a pathetic loser - forcibly removed from a hotel restaurant when he insists on reusing an already validated voucher; pilfering toiletries, towels, and even the battery from a remote control before he's evicted from his hotel room; and charging five dollars to autograph a copy of his slow-selling second book. He's a man pinballing from one humiliation to another, the latest being a dressing down chased with a kick in the ribs from a man whose sister unsuccessfully underwent Ansel's cult deprogramming process.
With a debt collector (Lance Reddick) threatening more bodily harm if Ansel doesn't pay back his publisher, the downtrodden author and cult expert has no choice but to be hired by a desperate couple (Beth Grant and Chris Ellis) whose 28-year-old daughter Claire (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has been ensorcelled by the titular cult. The plan is to kidnap her, isolate her in a motel, and undo the brainwashing. It's dangerous and expensive, Ansel warns, and there's no guarantee of course correction. The parents agree, Claire is snatched and sequestered, and Ansel sets about to deprogram her.
Up until this point, Ansel is seen as a character who wouldn't be out of place in a Coen Brothers film or an Elmore Leonard novel: an ancillary figure who steps out into the spotlight, whose desperation and sure-to-be-doomed enterprise serve as a grand and amusing diversion. Then Claire starts talking, and Stearns reroutes the connections, narrowing the focus on the very serious psychological battle of wills between the dyad.
Winstead's finely calibrated performance keeps Claire an enigma. Her becalmed composure might signal a surrender of control, but it also belies the chilling command of someone governed by a frighteningly sound mind. The concept of free will - defined by Ansel as "making a choice for yourself based on what life gives you" - seems ironically applied here as Claire is being forced to extricate herself from the captivity of one master by someone manipulating her to return to the possession of another.
Ansel himself is less leader than apostle, as Claire recognises. He is clearly alarmed by incidents which have no rational explanation (Claire explains she was able to leave from a locked bathroom by stepping through the door) and the increasingly possessive behaviour of Claire's father, but he can't walk away from the money he needs to pay off his debt. Orser is excellent; he and Winstead sell the hell out of the third act, which takes on an eerie, almost supernatural flavour. Stearns displays a facility for balancing the shifting tonalities. His narrative doesn't hold up too well upon closer inspection, but Stearns deftly navigates the more vulnerable plotting in this absorbing tale of perceptions of power, identity and control.
Faults
Directed by: Ridley Stearns
Written by: Ridley Stearns
Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Leland Orser, Beth Grant, Chris Ellis, Lance Reddick, Jon Gries
