Parents' Guide to The Actor

This is an unusual, fascinating movie, taking the main character's iffy memory as a visual theme and creating an unreal atmosphere in which, despite moments of peace, things seem to be a bit off. The Actor is the solo feature directing debut of Duke Johnson, an animator who co-directed the stop-motion movie Anomalisa along with Charlie Kaufman (Kaufman serves as a producer here). It's based on a hard-boiled novel by legendary crime author Donald E. Westlake that was written in the 1960s and published posthumously in 2010.

But Johnson deletes all realism from the story, making it into a created thing, an artificial world. As Paul drifts from place to place, things grow dark, and he walks through black nothingness until arriving at the next place. Moments happen in flashes, as if we've lost time and are unaware of how much of it has passed. Images change from stark black-and-white (film) and fuzzy black-and-white (TV) and back to color again. And when Paul first meets Edna, she's wearing a clown suit! Then we start to notice that the people around Paul are played by the same actors, such as Jones and Tracey Ullman, continually recast in different makeup and costumes and using different voices. It feels like an insulated world, perhaps of Paul's own making. The result is a constantly intriguing mystery (what awaits Paul in New York?) that's at odds with its sweet romance (will Paul make it back to Edna?). The Actor won't be for everyone, especially those expecting a straightforward adaptation of Westlake's novel, but it's an experimental work that will tickle more adventurous moviegoers.