Proxy
Director: Zack Parker
Year Released: 2013
Rating: 0.5
Pregnant Esther (Alexia Rasmussen), with no support system, gets badly beaten in an alleyway and loses her child because of the attack, so she goes to a support group for grieving mothers and meets deceptively sympathetic soul Melanie (Alexa Havins). Comparisons to Hitchcock are an insult to the Master of Suspense, since Parker - who worked on the "script" with Kevin Donner - doesn't bother exploring the mindset of any of these people and introduces 'twists' (why does indie stalwart Joe Swanberg know to show up in the bathroom with a shotgun and start firing without question?) that hardly seem logical, and the switch-up mid-movie from stoic, sexually-confused Esther (a self-hating lesbian?) to Manipulative Melanie is more of a screenwriting trick than an act of artistry. Seeing Swanberg's name in the opening credits should act as an early warning for the viewer: this is a padded work-in-progress passed off as a polished presentation.
