Description: |
Jean-Paul Satre insists, Hell is other people. If thats the case then Palm Springs is
Purgatory.Elements of Matter is yet another film about the question, what are we doing here? And, really, who the hell needs us?Lilly is a famous actress about to step into a junket when she receives a phone call from her boyfriend informing her that hes done, just like that. Which leads her, about half way through her interview, to an existential breakdown. Everything she has ever said has been scripted for her. She walks off, with little explanation or apology and heads out to Palm Springs, for a holiday weekend with her family. Her eccentric family! She arrives to an empty house, and proceeds to break down in the kitchen knife in hand. At the very moment when a complete stranger, intruder steps into the kitchen. Shes startled, dropping the knife and injuring herself in the process and faints. Her intruder faints as well.
When they come to Lilly is laying on top of Fritz. Hes convinced she has stabbed him. Convinced hes bleeding from his crotch. And to Lillys horror removes his pants. Hes rented a house in Palm Springs for the weekend to take some time off and deal with a divorce. Things arent going very well, like the airline losing his luggage, like hes got the wrong house, apparently, and now his pants are blood stained.
At that exact moment Lillys family walks in. Her very, very eccentric family: her brother - a self-help book writer with writer's block, his sexually frustrated wife who is heavily addicted to candy bars, their assistant who only communicates with the world through her phone, a cousin so optimistic she hardly ever blinks and her auteur husband struggling with his very confusing masterpiece. And, of course, theres Lilly. Who inexplicably decides to introduce everyone to Fritz, as her boyfriend. Let the holiday weekend begin.Elements of Matter is an absurdist comedy set in three acts and then some. |