Movie Review: 'Black Bear' is Aubrey Plaza at Her Best

Black Bear is a trip. This bizarre experiment in behind the scenes at the movies may be hard to make sense of but is nonetheless impressive and compelling. As much as I must admit that I struggled to follow what was happening, I loved puzzling over what I saw and pondering what was meant, what was intended, and the other movies I was reminded of from the work of David Lynch to Christopher Nolan.

Black Bear stars Aubrey Plaza as Allison, a film director who has taken a room at a small cottage in the Adirondacks while she writes her next screenplay. The owners of the cottage are Gabe (Christopher Abbott) and his pregnant girlfriend, Blair (Sarah Gadon), though Gabe confuses the relationship status as he welcomes Allison to the cottage. Wanting to keep his options open, Gabe fails to mention to Allison that he’s in a relationship. This only comes out as Blair’s jealousy flairs up over dinner.

The conversation that evolves as this trio is gathered for drinks and dinner is filled with tension and sore spots. The conversation is awkward and uncomfortable in that way that people trying to be polite and struggling to connect can be. You can sense Allison is both a gladhander who wants to defuse the growing tension and yet also a bit of a trickster who likes to stoke the fire when it begins to pique her interest.

The reason the movie is called Black Bear is due to the frequent appearance of the titular animal as when it plunders through the trash or it frightens Allison as she is returning from a late night swim. The bear becomes central to the action at the midpoint of Black Bear when an accident following Blair going into labor sends the movie careening in an entirely different direction, one that is likely to confound many viewers. There are likely many other symbolic layers to the use of the bear but I will leave you to puzzle over that for yourself.

At the midpoint of Black Bear we shift from what appears to be an IRL interaction between these three characters to a movie within a movie format. Suddenly, Allison is an actress, Gabe is now the director, and Blair is Allison’s co-star. Allison and Gabe are married and deeply at odds. Gabe is causing the tension between them intentionally as he feels it is drawing the best performance from Allison.

Gabe makes a point of giving Blair more attention while forcing Allison to do repeated takes. He gives Blair more praise and leaves Allison to stew in anger and jealousy. This is intended by Gabe to give Allison fuel for the film within a film's most important scene which is near word for word recreation of the tension filled dinner scene from the first half of Black Bear. If you are confused, that's okay, Black Bear is intended to be rather confounding.

Writer-director Lawrence Michael Levine is toying with film form and blurring the lines of reality to create a tension for us in the audience that matches the tension of the characters in the stories being told. We are left in a state of confusion and irritation nearly as much as Blair, Allison and Gabe are. The drama of Black Bear is reminiscent of a thriller with growing suspense in scene after scene even as there is no thriller conceit, no threats of murder, only a growing sense of disquiet that gives the movie a tense and exciting charge.

Aubrey Plaza is fast becoming one of the most fascinating actors working today. Though mostly associated with comedy, her spiky energy lends itself to this type of drama. Her aloof manner, sharp wit and unconventional attractiveness, all serve to make Plaza an actress you cannot take your eyes off of. As far back as her role on TV’s Parks and Recreation, Hollywood has mined Plaza’s unique energy and in Black Bear she proves that that uniqueness transcends genre.

Black Bear toys with film form and uses our expectations of straightforward narratives against us to shock and surprise us and because it is so skillfully done, I didn’t mind being left off kilter throughout the movie. The shifting narrative and the positions of the cast all worked to keep me riveted to the movie so as not to miss an important detail. This kind of experimental narrative can go very wrong in the wrong hands but it works in Black Bear to amp up the oddly suspenseful atmosphere in a way that I found thrilling.

Black Bear debuts on many streaming rental services on Friday, December 4th.