Lindsay Burdge stars as a flight attendant who goes bonkers in Nathan Silver’s Thirst Street
THIRST STREET (Nathan Silver, 2016)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Opens Wednesday, September 20
212-255-2243
www.quadcinema.com
After her lover, Paul (Damien Bonnard), hangs himself, Gina (Lindsay Burdge), a rather dim flight attendant, hooks up with Jérôme (Bonnard again), a bartender at a strip club. But what is a one-night stand for Jérôme turns into a dangerous obsession for Gina in Nathan Silver’s Thirst Street, a dark comedy that is neither dark nor funny. The problem is that until a rousing finale, Gina and Jérôme are not sympathetic characters that the audience will care about in the slightest. It doesn’t appear that it’s the suicide that drives Gina nuts; she’s already a dull, uninteresting person before that, and Jérôme is not exactly someone you can get behind either. Silver has said that Gina was inspired by Don Quixote, but she’s more of a disappointing combination of the protagonists from Aki Kaurismäki’s Match Factory Girl, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie, and Adrian Lyne’s Fatal Attraction as seen through the lens of Brian De Palma and Wes Anderson (especially when it comes to Anjelica Huston’s narration). Burdge (The Midnight Swim, A Teacher) turns in a brave performance, and Esther Garrel is terrific as punk rocker Clémence, Jérôme’s former flame, but the rest of the cast fails to ignite, despite boasting such actors as Jacques Nolot as nightclub owner Franz and Françoise Lebrun as Gina’s landlady. (Silver also once again casts his mother, Cindy, this time as one of Gina’s fellow flight attendants; let’s just say she doesn’t do him any favors with her acting ability.) Silver (Uncertain Terms, Stinking Heaven) never quite grasps what the film should be, resulting in a confusing mess of multiple genres that merely brushes the surface of his tongue-in-cheek (or is it?) narrative. Thirst Street opens September 20 at the Quad, with Silver and Burdge participating in Q&As following the 6:55 screenings on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday night.