No. 88 Complete Unknown (2016) 64/100

 

This one opens with several short scenes of Rachel Weisz carrying out various occupations such as a nurse and a magician’s assistant. You may be forgiven for thinking you’ve stumbled onto a new celebrity reality show, but there is more if you hang around.

 

Meanwhile Michael Shannon is preparing for his birthday party. He starts out with a strange accent, but this is quickly dropped. He has problems of his own however – the bakery has put the wrong name on his birthday cake. There are also fissures appearing in his relationship with his exotic wife who has the option of a two-year jewellery making course and she wants Shannon to come with her to California.

 

Weisz shows up at the party with a colleague of Shannon’s with whom she'd engineered a meeting. We know he has no chance really as he’s a bit fat and he is destined to be in the friendzone forever. Shannon has a long doubletake at Weisz whom he knows as ‘Jenny’ but who now goes as ‘Alice’. He gets her alone and Alice accepts she is indeed Jenny but says that she has reinvented herself.

 

Over dinner the guests ask her more questions than a Trivial Pursuit contest and opinion is mixed as to whether she is brave or a mental case. The group then head out to a club where Weisz reveals that in the 15 years since she and Shannon were together, she’s had nine different identities. The things people do to get out of a Readers’ Digest subscription!

 

The pair go for a walk and encounter Kathy Bates who promptly falls over. They take her home to her husband Danny Glover and Weisz sticks Shannon in it by saying he’s an osteopath. Shannon runs with the deceit and gets the same thrill as Alice does by misrepresenting himself. After they make their excuses, Alice says it’s time for another change and will he join her? Will he or is the wife the better option?

 

There was a good film in here somewhere but sadly it wasn’t the one that appeared on my DVD. The main irk for me was that Alice was clearly a nutjob and Shannon should have run a mile. I get that the idea is one of identity and liberation, but she just came across as sad and unhinged. We didn’t get much in the way of backstory to explain her actions and why she wanted to be so untethered.

 

I think the film would have been better if Shannon had spotted her and she denied being whom he thought she was rather than have Weisz engineer the meeting. As it was, she stalked the poor man and tried to lure him back, contrary to everything else we knew of her character.

 

Shannon was decent in what was largely a two hander, but I didn’t buy his character and his keenness to engage in the charade. I think any reasonable person, such as the character he’d established, would start taking slow steps back as soon as Weisz started her nonsense. There were some decent ideas in here, and I think the idea of ducking out of one’s responsibilities and starting afresh may appeal to some, but it just seemed a bit irresponsible to me. Also, how much hassle would it be getting new cards and documents every 18 months?!

 

The film was undemanding and a somewhat slight 90 minutes and whilst not a Complete Disaster it was a missed opportunity.

 

When is Shannon-On? – 05.35

Outcome?  Contemplating his future with his wife

Film 2.5/5

Shannon Stars 3/5