Entertainment for Nihilists

Entertainment is a blur. I don't mean it's too quick. I mean every part of it—the in-and-out-of-focus cinematography, the bilingual conversations characters may or may not understand, the fights and accidents we're dropped into with little explanation—is blurry. It's a gut-sick road-trip film that only goes around in circles, and a comedy (much like director Rick Alverson's last stunning film, The Comedy) that only a nihilist could mine for laughs.

The film follows Gregg Turkington in costume as his sleazy nightclub comedian alter ego Neil Hamburger, touring dive bars in a seemingly endless desert wasteland. He is utterly uninterested in the film's supporting players, including his would-be protégé (deftly played by Tye Sheridan, the kid from Mud). Instead, Turkington spends most of his between-gig time taking extremely dull sightseeing tours.

The real-life Turkington has toured comedy and rock clubs for decades as Hamburger, who dubs himself "America's Funnyman," takes the stage cradling two or three drinks and tells tasteless jokes about dead or washed-up celebrities while struggling mightily with excess phlegm. But it's Turkington's more recent—and far more charming—recurring role alongside comedian Tim Heidecker on the toothless movie-review show On Cinema that hints at the actor's range. In On Cinema, Turkington is deadpan and unshakable as an obsessive amateur film critic who champions Hollywood's most unlovable vehicles. He views The Hobbit trilogy as a high-water mark of modern filmmaking and explains the finer points of cataloging his massive VHS collection.

But in the beautiful, difficult and wholly draining Entertainment, the quirky fanboy Turkington from On Cinema is replaced by a much darker and more fragile incarnation, and his performance is understated and unnerving, filled with long stares and small physical tics. But it's often spoiled by overbearing ambient music like pensive string, creepy wind chimes and a didgeridoo or chanting or whatever. Then there's the meandering anti-plot that keeps picking up new strings without ever tying any knots.

In The Comedy, director Alverson gave us an uncomfortably intimate portrait of a character who held nothing sacred with the story of a guy from Williamsburg in Brooklyn who couldn't care less about the wealthy inheritance he's about to get. In the even darker Entertainment, Turkington gives everything in pursuit of an eccentric dream that no one seems to understand. Both films make half-assed attempts to address the roots of their protagonists' monumental character flaws (a dying father in The Comedy, a distant daughter in Entertainment), as if to taunt our tendency toward forgiveness.

The Frankenstein-esque final scenes of Entertainment make it painfully clear: As much as we want to read them as social critique, Rick Alverson makes monster movies.

Critic's Grade: B

SEE IT: Entertainment is rated R. It opens Friday at the Hollywood Theatre.

Willamette Week