Tyger Tyger

This arty indie has lots of style, and it often feels like a psychedelic-fueled outsider artwork, but it lacks a sense of rebellion or force; it eventually seems to be meandering aimlessly. The writing and directing debut of Kerry Mondragon -- who is in recovery himself -- Tyger Tyger takes its name from William Blake's 1794 poem "The Tyger," although it's unclear whether there's a correlation or whether the poem is just another of the movie's art pieces on display. The film did luck out on timing, given that it's set during a pandemic, complete with mask-wearing, but it doesn't really seem to click with much else during the COVID-19 era. There's no sense of communal experience.

While Tyger Tyger focuses on characters who are rebels and outsiders, the movie doesn't seem to have much to say about those in control of the situation or what's going on in the world. (It doesn't rebel against anything.) Indeed, it doesn't even have much to say about drug dependency, other than the idea that it just is. You get the idea that the characters would be just as happy working as fashion models, staring blankly at cameras. Still, despite the wobbly cinematography, Mondragon does establish a genuinely unsettling mood, and his little world manages to mesmerize, along with the sounds of characters saying things that sound profound but probably mean nothing.