I’ve been coming to Sundance long enough to know that “What’s it about?” is very often the wrong question; the main problem with Antonio Campos’ follow-up to the mesmerizing
Afterschool is that it starts to fall apart as soon as you get a handle on the answer to that question. Brady Corbet plays the titular Simon, a recent college grad from New York who heads to Paris to clear his head after a traumatic break-up. While there, Simon hooks up with a prostitute (Mati Diop), and soon begins showing sides of his personality that are somewhat … dark. Campos is a remarkable visual stylist, and many of his individual scenes are brilliantly crafted: Simon’s wanderings through art galleries; a night of nightclub dancing; Simon awkwardly attempting to find a wi-fi signal while masturbating to Internet chat-porn. But Campos’ exploration of the enigmatic Simon and his efforts at re-creating himself on the fly remains compelling only as long as it doesn’t venture into familiar territory of Portrait of a Borderline Sociopath. A couple of over-the-top decisions take
Simon Killer from something that could have been a marvelously stylized tale of anything-goes-vacation-goes bad to the story of a messed-up guy with mommy issues. (Scott Renshaw)
