Dream auditor James Preble (Kentucker Audley) meets a fantastical young woman (Grace Glowicki) in Strawberry Mansion
STRAWBERRY MANSION (Kentucker Audley & Albert Birney, 2021)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Through Thursday, March 3
212-255-2243
quadcinema.com
Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney follow up their 2017 codirecting debut, Sylvio, about a well-dressed gorilla working as a debt collector while he pursues his goal of having his own puppet show, with the equally bizarre but utterly fabulous Strawberry Mansion, continuing at the Quad through March 3. It’s 2035, and government auditor James Preble (Audley) has been assigned to investigate Bella Isadora (Penny Fuller), an elderly woman who lives in a strawberry-colored house in the middle of nowhere, behind a sign that announces, “The End.” The soft-spoken, all-business Preble is tasked with reviewing Bella’s dreams, which are now taxable; she has stored them on two thousand analog VHS tapes, which have been outlawed. Preble puts on an outlandish metal headset and watches Bella’s fanciful dreams on the tapes, calculating what Bella will have to pay. But Bella also gives him her own homemade electric helmet, which takes Preble into another world, where he encounters Bella as a beautiful young woman (Grace Glowicki) offering him a freedom he’s never known, amid impending danger. When Bella’s family shows up — her mean son, Peter (Reed Birney), his witchy wife, Martha (Constance Shulman), and their dullard son, Brian (Ephraim Birney), Preble learns more about the deep intrigue he’s involved in and is soon fighting for his own survival as he seeks the truth.
Strawberry Mansion is endless fun, a neonoir surreal fantasy thriller that evokes Michel Gondry’s wildly imaginative duo, Be Kind, Rewind and The Science of Sleep. It’s like David Lynch and Guy Maddin codirected an episode of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse based on a Stranger Things script by John Carpenter and David Cronenberg. The film switches between a muted palette and fanciful, bright hues, with settings that have a DIY quality as the story bounces between different times and locations with a seemingly reckless abandon; well-deserved kudos go to cinematographer Tyler Davis, production designer Becca Brooks Morrin, costume designer Mack Reyes, art director Lydia Milano, propmaster Marnie Ellen Hertzler, and set decorator Paisley Isaacs for creating an alternate universe that will have you thoroughly delighted while scratching your head, but don’t think too hard about what it all means. Electronic musician Dan Deacon composed the ultracool score.
Strawberry Mansion is more than just a surreal adventure into a supremely weird future; it is also a clever satire of overconsumption, social media, and the advertising algorithms that dominate our daily lives. It seems the only food available is Cap’n Kelly fried chicken (and the new chicken shake with gravy!) and Red Rocket cola, which come in containers broadcasting their prominent logos. And the use of VHS tapes instead of digital media harkens back to a lost past that we can never get back. Technical advancement is not always for the best, as we keep learning every day. In fact, Audley and Birney shot Strawberry Mansion digitally, then had it transferred to 16mm to give it that special look and create the old-fashioned atmosphere.
Audley (Open Five, Holy Land) portrays Preble as a 1970/’80s-style private eye in a low-budget Saturday matinee, with a great ’stache, while Albert Birney (The Beast Pageant, Tux and Fanny) appears as a frog waiter and blue demon. Fuller, who has received two Tony and six Emmy nominations (winning one) in her distinguished sixty-year career (Applause, The Elephant Man), has an absolute blast as Bella, a smile perpetually on her warm, charming face.
Dream auditor James Preble (Kentucker Audley) has quite a job to do in Strawberry Mansion
It’s a family affair, as Albert Birney’s aunt, uncle, and cousin, Constance Shulman, Reed Birney, and their real-life son, Ephraim, play Bella’s kinfolk, with Tony winner Reed (The Humans, Mass) and Shulman (Orange Is the New Black, Doug) chewing up as much scenery as they can. Linas Phillips is Preble’s oddball friend, Peter, while Lawrence Worthington and Shannon Heartwood are Richard and Marcus Rat and Mack Reyes is the stowaway. Oh, and don’t forget Sugarbaby the turtle.
Strawberry Mansion has all the earmarks of a cult classic, the kind of flick that should have fans lining up at theaters for midnight screenings dressed like the characters, tossing around props, eating fried chicken, and calling out favorite lines. I’m not going to tell you who I’m going as, as that might reveal too much about me.