With a name like Surveillance, people are sure to notice. Or, at least, the genre arm of Magnolia Pictures. Fresh off the truck from Cannes, Magnet Releasing announced their purchase of the domestic rights to Jennifer Lynch’s (yes, daughter of David) mind-bending “Surveillance”.
Surveillance is an out of competition film at Cannes this week along with Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and Spielberg’s new Indiana Jones reincarnation.
That creepy little girl from David Lynch’s 1977 classic Eraserhead has sure grown up. Directing her first feature since 1993’s critically-slammed “Boxing Helena”, “Surveillance” follows an FBI agent sent to a dreary small town to track a serial killer in the wake of a killing spree on a deserted highway.
Lynch directed Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond as the FBI Agents, with Pell James, Ryan Simpkins, French Stewart and Cheri Oteri filling out the cast.
But before you think FBI agents just come out of the woodwork and there’s a serial killer around every corner, what makes this film truly original is that, in this small town, “everyone lies, nothing is what it seems, and no one is safe”. Damning words, but of course, by “truly original” I meant, “corny, recycled and pseudo-intellectual”. The FBI agents (Pullman and Orman) try to piece together some commonality between the three witnesses that come forward, but the cop, the junkie and the child all have very different things to say.
Jennifer Lynch wrote the script with producer Kent Harper, although the film is blatantly banking on its relationship with the executive producer, none other than David Lynch himself. But you can judge it for yourself when Magnet releases the twisty film into theatres this fall.
