The second feature-length film by noted graphic designer Ryan Brookhart, Two Ways to Go West moves outside of the horror genre and endeavours to explore the big topics: personal demons, unspoken truths, repercussions. However, the style and approach it takes doesn’t really serve its themes; whilst visually sharp, it can feel tonally erratic, and badly needs a punchline or crescendo of some sort.
Film star Gavin (also the film’s writer, James Liddell) is heading to Vegas for a bachelor party with two old friends, Marty (Paul Gennaro) and Shane (Drew Kenney). It’s established in the first couple of lines of dialogue that Gavin is a recovering addict, and his two friends are understandably a little nervous about the flashpoint which Vegas potentially represents. Slightly incongruously, though, we never see the guys actually out on the town – we just see them going out, then returning to the apartment where they while away the hours, playing cards and games. Soon, however, it becomes apparent that Gavin’s drug issues aren’t the only issue lurking on the periphery of these early conversations. It’s also apparent that repairing friendships – or not – will be the central thread in the rest of the film.
Gradually, or rather slowly, the relationship between them is explored as they talk. The film elects to use the ‘mumblecore’ style of dialogue where inanity is balanced against developing plot points, and this is something you either like or you don’t, but it does lead to issues in Two Ways to Go West. The tension escalates and de-escalates very rapidly: these three men go from emotional purges, talking fairly meaningfully about problems in their collective past, but then move back into – as happens fairly frequently – talking about food, or other minor topics which clash with the drama which has just preceded it. There is some ambition elsewhere; whilst some of these are fairly well-established in indie cinema by now (text messages appearing on screen, text which I imagine has been spoken by Gavin’s girlfriend, flashbacks) it does show some attempts to enliven the storytelling. However, the go-nowhere dialogue makes the other developments harder to follow or accept. There’s also a rather clumsy ‘reveal’ quite early on in the film when it turns out that a stripper hired to dance in the apartment is …already known to one of the men, and his reaction to this is quite something to behold. This is one of the ways in which the drama suddenly explodes, then fades away again: uncomfortable truths are replaced with conversations about pickles.
Drug addiction would never be foregrounded here the way that it is without going on to figure in the night’s festivities. Seeing as the bulk of the film takes place in an apartment, it’s actually quite welcome to move the action outside of this environment for a short period of time. Similarly, some of the long shots at the start of the film are great, providing a sense of distance and scale. Gavin does have a sense of vulnerability to him which plausibly sets him aside from his friends, and some of the drug binge footage looks good in later scenes; less plausible, even given we can accept that addicts are unpredictable narcissists who will restructure every narrative to position themselves as victims, is how Gavin responds to the surprise moments which befall him. One of the key sources of tension in this particular narrative is women; rather than genuinely figuring in proceedings, though, the film makes them into bystanders, either entirely absent and without agency off-screen, or momentarily the focus of shock and horror – for not doing anything much, really. Resolutions to the ‘women problems’ are rather thinly developed, sorry to say, even whilst allowing for the fact that this is a film about male friendship. Women are oblivious, dupes, or liars. It’s not much of a scorecard.
Two Ways To Go West has lofty aims, and deciding to move so clearly away from horror can’t have been an easy decision for someone whose career has been so wrapped up in the genre, in one way or another. Developing and sustaining interpersonal drama, especially with such a small cast and limited location, is a feat which eludes even long-established directors, so perhaps some of these issues are only to be expected. However, more consistency and far more of a sense of direction was badly needed here.
Two Ways to Go West is out now on VOD.