I am the sort of person, and, by extension, the sort of critic who always tries to find the good in things. There is very little out there, animal, vegetable, or mineral, that is completely without merit. When it comes to artistic endeavors like filmmaking, an incredible amount of work, energy, stress, and passion go into taking a project from idea to completed product on a screen. But every now and then, my patience is well and truly tested by a movie, and I not only struggle to find things to appreciate about it, but I struggle to find anything to say about it at all. I have seldom found a movie such a perplexing, threadbare, and utterly irritating experience as I did Atrabilious. It ignores almost every convention of movie-making, seemingly not out of stylistic choice, but out of naïveté. There is something fundamentally not right about it. It’s like speaking a foreign language in literal textbook translation rather than with the natural rhythms and colloquialisms of a native: the listener may understand what you’re trying to say, but the way you’re doing it betrays any sense of confidence or knowledge.
What Is ‘Atrabilious’ About?

The vaguest idea I could muster of what the movie is actually about goes like this: Steven’s (Leon Addison Brown) son died fairly recently, and there’s some underground scientist who’s invented a strange kind of therapy in which bereaved people are given special cocktails that somehow lift their spirits, and are meant to help them process their grief more healthily. You could perhaps draw analogies to an opening scene in which the main character attends a therapy session and is offered medication to take the edge off his misery. But he never actually seems miserable. In fact, none of the people in this movie ever seem to be or feel anything. They are like human puppets being bobbed along by the skimpiest plotline, never seeming to know or react to anything. Stuff just happens, and you’re never sure what it’s all about. There is somehow way too much going on, and nowhere near enough. Characters just show up, unintroduced and with zero context for their part in the story, say some words, and then disappear again. People go to places, although it’s often impossible to tell where, or why, and say some more words, and then leave. There is something so disjointed and thoroughly unpolished about Atrabilious that it becomes a genuine annoyance to sit through. It feels like somewhere under all the clutter and schoolboy errors, there may actually be a somewhat intriguing sci-fi idea, but any such nugget of quality is crushed under 100 minutes of utter nonsense.
‘Atrabilious’ Is Obviously the Work of a Young Director

Image via Buffalo 8

This is the second feature by William Atticus Parker, who was literally a teenager when he made this, and you can tell. This was clearly an incredibly cheap movie, which I do not point out disparagingly, but because the director does not know how to make a lot out of a little. He has not yet figured out how to use a low budget to his advantage. There is a jarring choppiness to the movie and the way it is put together. It is often clear that scene partners are not even in the same room together. They are each filmed in close-up, supposedly having a conversation, and then it’s all stitched unconvincingly together in post.

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The entire film is weirdly and unflatteringly framed. The upper half of the screen will be empty, or the camera will be too close to two people sitting in conversation so that their back halves are cut out of the picture. Everybody is filmed handheld in such extreme close-up that you can’t attribute any one shot to a scene. It’s impossible to tell where a person is standing, and in relation to what and whom, making the physical space of the movie illegible. To put it bluntly, this is an immature artistic effort. Again, I don’t mean this as a put-down. If anything, I think there could be seeds of a decent artist here, and perhaps in 10 or 20 years, Parker could be an actual director. But right now, he is a young man with big dreams, but not enough experience in life or filmmaking to make something worthwhile. And that’s no bad thing. With age comes experience, and child prodigies are overrated. Progress means much more when you earn it through a variety of jobs, relationships, and settings, and if he were to gain industry experience this way, he would be on the path to a strong career.
Director Parker Needs to Hone His Craft

Image Via Buffalo 8

The end credits list the director’s many inspirations, from Wes Anderson to William Friedkin, as well as a dedication to the memory of David Lynch. This is a student film, through and through, and I get the spirit. I really do. I was a film student once, too, and I too made some terrible movies, naive enough to be excited just by the fact that I was filming scenes like a grown-up filmmaker, but not yet possessing the knowledge or experience to make those scenes cohesive or artistically competent. It turns out the director is none other than the son of actors Billy Crudup and Mary-Louise Parker. I don’t want to sound too cynical, but by about the half-hour mark, I figured the kid behind this had to have famous or well-connected parents who called in a lot of favors. The likes of Whoopi Goldberg and Alec Baldwin show up for half a day’s work, and to add some star power. If you believe the poster (which is infinitely better than the movie itself), you’d think that they played significant characters in the story. They do not. Goldberg is a psychopharmacologist who apparently doesn’t know not to share confidential patient information with strangers, and Baldwin is just some weirdo who lazes around like an old weed dealer in an apartment full of other strange people who add basically nothing to the story. In fact, that’s not a bad way to describe Atrabilious. Imagine spending a day in the apartment of a petty criminal you don’t really know, and just sitting there watching all the weird, mumbled, barely-explained comings and goings. It doesn’t make sense, you don’t know who any of these people are, and by the end of it, you collapse on your own comfortable sofa, wondering what the hell it was all about and glad to be out of there. Parker needs to slow down, take a step back, and not be afraid to learn from people who know what they’re doing. Billy and Mary-Louise, set your son up with mentors, not with colleagues. He is credited as director, writer, cinematographer, editor, and producer, and this is all evident in the quality of the final product. He hasn’t had enough time to get to know even one of these fields intimately, let alone all five, and by insisting on covering all these bases, he is spreading himself too thin and missing out on the chance to grow and learn as a filmmaker. He should do a couple more shorts, work as a first A.D. on a few bigger projects, and then try again. I’m sure there’s talent in there, but this nepo baby route is doing Parker no favors professionally. I hope that in a few years, we will see much better from him. Atrabilious arrives in theaters on July 18.

Atrabilious

A messy, confusing and thoroughly unengaging experiment, with the kernel of a good idea underneath.

Release Date

August 1, 2024

Runtime

100 minutes

Director

William Atticus Parker

Writers

William Atticus Parker

Pros & Cons

There is a somewhat intriguing sci-fi concept buried under it all.
The young director could go on to better things with the right guidance.

The story is confusing and poorly established, giving nothing for the audience to latch onto.
The practical quality of the film, from cinematography to sound, is shoddy.
Performances are mediocre at best and phoned in at worst.