Plucked

I sat down with no knowledge of what this film was about. I approached it with an open mind, welcoming the prospect of almost two hours of enjoyable storytelling. If I’m left feeling satisfied when the credits roll, then the film has achieved what it set out to do. It’s entertained me.

On other occasions, however, the credits roll and I find myself slightly puzzled and not necessarily satisfied, simply because the storytelling hasn’t quite worked for me.

Unfortunately, Plucked falls into the latter category.

Set in nineteenth-century New York, this period dark comedy and mystery, co-written and directed by Katie Vincent and Usher Morgan, introduces us to Katherine Greene (Katie Vincent), a wealthy woman who has apparently decided that her marriage to Peter (Jared Canfield), a doctor, has reached its end.

We begin at their grand residence, where an assortment of household staff are busily preparing for an elaborate dinner party. It’s immediately apparent that some effort has gone into the production. The house itself looks suitably impressive, the period costumes are convincing and the cinematography makes good use of both the interiors and the surrounding countryside.

Katherine, meanwhile, seems more interested in leaving her husband than entertaining their guests and we see her seemingly preparing for that moment.

An early encounter between the couple suggests that all is not well in their marriage, while a conversation with a housemaid confirms that Katherine does indeed have plans to leave. Peter, on the other hand, appears determined that the evening should proceed as expected.

As the guests begin arriving, we’re introduced to a collection of characters whose actions and conversations suggest that there may be rather more going on beneath the surface than we’re initially being told.

Peter seems increasingly tense, particularly when questions arise about his profession and the anticipated arrival of a guest of honour named Oswald. Katherine, meanwhile, appears less than delighted to discover that her husband has arranged for this particular guest to attend without consulting her.

There’s clearly something brewing here, and I initially thought the film was setting up an interesting evening of uncomfortable revelations and simmering resentment.

Unfortunately, I found much of the early dialogue and interaction between the guests a little forced. The performances across the board do work, and the cast certainly look the part, but the conversations didn’t always feel particularly natural to me.

But at this stage, I was invested enough to see and keep guessing as to where it was all heading.

And then things take a rather dramatic turn as the evening progresses.

Without giving too much away, what begins as a strained dinner party eventually develops into a considerably more violent confrontation involving infidelity, accusations, threats and a succession of increasingly outrageous developments.

I appreciate that Plucked is intended as a dark comedy and there’s nothing wrong with taking a relatively straightforward premise and pushing it into some outrageous territory. In fact, that can work well when the humour and, more importantly, the storytelling come together.

But I struggled to find much humour in what was unfolding.

Instead, I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated as the film moved from one confrontation to another. The characters’ behaviour and the direction of the story were becoming more difficult to fully understand and see where it was heading.

There’s clearly something being said here about the breakdown of a marriage, resentment and the lengths people might go to when a relationship falls apart. But I found the storytelling increasingly disjointed, and by the time the film reached its bizarre conclusion, I was struggling to understand what it actually wanted me to take away from it.

I even went back over certain scenes to see whether I’d missed something that might explain the characters’ actions or the changes in their behaviour.

Unfortunately, that didn’t really help.

The film’s more violent moments also vary in their effectiveness. Some of the confrontations are reasonably staged, but at least one of the practical effects struck me as rather unconvincing, which didn’t help when I was already struggling to become invested in what was happening.

And then there’s the ending.

I won’t spoil it, but suffice to say that it introduces another element of ambiguity that left me frowning and scratching my head rather than feeling intrigued and satisfied.

Perhaps there’s a symbolic explanation hidden somewhere in Plucked but if there was I’m not sure I fully grasped that.  Or maybe it’s simply  intended as another example of the film’s increasingly absurd sense of humour. Either way, it didn’t particularly work for me.

What makes this frustrating is that Plucked isn’t a poorly presented film.

The period setting is convincing, the residence and surrounding locations look good, and the cinematography is certainly one of its stronger elements. There’s plenty to appreciate in the way it looks.

But attractive production values can only take a film so far.

I wanted to become involved in the deteriorating relationship between Katherine and Peter, to understand their motivations and perhaps even find some amusement in the increasingly uncomfortable circumstances they find themselves in.

Instead, I found myself watching a succession of events that became progressively more bizarre without becoming particularly entertaining.

I don’t necessarily need every question answered or every character’s actions explained. Some ambiguity can be a good thing, especially in a film that deliberately plays with expectations.

However, there’s a difference between leaving an audience with something interesting to ponder and leaving them wondering whether they’ve missed the point altogether.

For me, Plucked unfortunately did more of the latter.

An interesting premise, convincing period presentation and some decent cinematography are all in its favour. But the uneven tone and increasingly frustrating storytelling ultimately overshadowed those positives.

I finished watching with the feeling that there was probably an interesting film somewhere amongst all of this.

I just wish I’d enjoyed the experience of trying to find it.