New Horizons: Sightseers

A series looking at recent films that fit into the cult, the crazy, the under-appreciated, and the just plain weird. 

Directed by Ben Wheatley

Written by Alice Lowe, Steve Oram, and Amy Jump

Starring Steve Oram (Chris) and Alice Lowe (Tina)

Cinematography by Laurie Rose
Edited by Robin Hill, Amy Jump, and Ben Wheatley

Released in 2012

Sightseers is what would happen if the dailies of a quirky indie dramedy and a slasher film produced by the same crew got mixed up and edited into one film. If the creators were crafty, they could create a trailer that falsely promises a Little Miss Sunshine-esque adventure. The hypothetical trailer would set up the film’s protagonist, Tina, as bored and unfulfilled over still having to live with her domineering, barely-there mother. The following trailer beats would show Tina and her boyfriend Chris setting out on the road to get away from it all and find themselves, and then a montage of the wacky places (tramlines, a pencil museum, a viaduct) and people (a group of shamans, an uptight author, an inventor) they meet. And the trailer could end hinting at the big, self-actualizing moment that caps the film.

Of course, in between those trailer-ready moments… murders happen. The movie shifts from a low-key, slice-of-life thing to a pitch black comedy when Chris “accidentally” backs into a man who had previously been seen littering. Wheatley shoots the scene in slow-motion in a way that emphasizes both the horror and the gross-out humor of the moment. Any problem this might cause to Chris and Tina’s road trip is resolved hilariously quickly with a shot of them walking out of a police station. Eventually, Chris’s true nature is revealed, when he murders a fellow caravan traveler for bragging about his writing skill. Tina quickly finds out about this when she picks up the camera that Chris had stolen from his victim. She transitions from confused girlfriend to willing accomplice a bit too quickly for my tastes, but Lowe’s murderous glint saves the movie from fumbling that point too badly. The film then moves into a Bonnie and Clyde/Badlands/True Romance mode with Chris and Tina going on a spree, killing people for the slightest, sometimes imagined, infraction, and generally indulging in whatever whims they have.

This is where my problems with the movie started. Wheatley wrings a lot of humor from the tension between the laid-back and genre sides of the film. In addition, the mental calculus the two main characters use to justify their crimes is often hilarious. Chris validates one killing by stating his victim is “not a person, he’s a Daily Mail reader!” He also invokes medieval feudalism as an excuse to murder current members of the upper-class, like he’s correcting a cosmic wrong by avenging a past life version of himself. However, there’s not much reason to care about the two outside of the fact that they are both serial killers. Oram and Lowe work hard to sell the material. Oram is convincing as both an unassuming dude and a righteous murderer, and has just the right face to switch easily between the two sides. In addition, the glee with which Lowe manipulates Chris and takes to her new found hobby is a sight to behold. Overall though, I left the movie feeling that the two were a bit thin, and that I hadn't been given a compelling enough reason to follow them.

Visually, the film is a bit mixed. Wheatley, and cinematographer Laurie Rose, make great use of the U.K. countryside. Through their lens, it’s either an indistinct mess of caravan spots and tacky restaurants or a foreboding mass of rocky outcrops. There are times when the film recalls Nicolas Winding Refn’s trippy Viking epic Valhalla Rising and makes the landscapes look positively sinister. And Wheatley goes all out during a few sequences of nightmare imagery. Chris’s first purposeful kill is a highlight, with the film cutting between Tina dancing with a group of pagans at night and Chris hunched over and stalking his prey while back-lit by an ominous sunrise. There's a teasing ambiguity to the sequence due to being intercut with shots of Chris and Tina in bed. Oram shows off his physical acting chops by transforming into a demonic presence with just a slight change in posture and a menacing smirk. Unfortunately, the film suffered from being shot digitally. For a film with such a dark subject matter, it often has a shiny, clean look that doesn’t quite fit. A grungier style would have been more appropriate.

Sightseers is ultimately a bit slack, with a few dazzling moments and performances that manage to keep it engaging. I will give the film credit for refusing to turn the main couple into heroes. Their attacks are meant to be more disturbing than cathartic, and their targets aren’t the easy caricatures seen in the similar God Bless America.