Right, cards on the table at the start of this review: I think we need a moratorium on the kinds of time- and space-bending which are so beloved of independent filmmakers right now. Where big budget offerings have opted to take a flashier route with the likes of high action time travel, explosions, robots and wars, you know, the big stuff, indie cinema – which is curtailed by lack of money and to a large extent, the influence of its peers – has Gone Philosophical. A cynic might say that breaking the fourth wall of space and time is so appealing because it allows a kind of ‘anything goes’ approach to narrative development, which at its worst tends towards complacency, leaving questions unanswered because if physics is out the window, then so are all the other rules, and don’t you dare challenge it. It’s about the character journey, stupid. Now, whilst Me, Myself & the Void (2023) avoids the worst pitfalls of its kind, it nonetheless has a few of its own. Its cardinal sin is that once you strip away all of the fantasy elements, it’s another indulgent exercise in Main Character Syndrome, and do we really need to indulge another main character in this way – or any other way, come to think of it?
Gentle piano music opens the film as we’re taken through the life of Jack (Jack De Sena) from birth to date, via a loving childhood and a jovial adulthood, watching as he starts his career as a stand-up comedian (here based on De Sena, or DeSena’s real career). As Jack takes to the stage for the first time in the film, we slot into standard audience mode just in time to curl our toes as he recounts a recent messy break-up from the stage, a decision which doesn’t get him many laughs…
So he metaphorically dies up there; this soon translates to what looks like a literal death on the floor of his bathroom, but wait: Jack is by now standing outside himself, looking down at himself, all from the perspective of a de facto version of his apartment, now blended with the stage where he just did the gig. This is the ‘void’, a strange place where Jack can pore over all of the decisions and events which may have led to him lying unconscious on his bathroom floor. Alongside him is a projected version of best friend Chris (Chris W. Smith), there to help in this process. It’s a little like a Clerks spin on the first chapter of Pandemonium, red door and all, but what seems clear – somehow – is that time is limited. If these two can’t deduce what has led to Jack’s collapse, then he might die for real.
So what ensues is all Jack – Jack who can’t remember anything, but together, the two men piece together events on the night in question. A lot of the film takes place in the void itself, a Beckett style, semi-real environment which operates outside pesky norms. However, the film also blends memory, fantasy and skit – said skits being in the mumblecore tradition, though with a few fixations: drugs, the weird roommate, and women. It’s funny, the film openly addresses the issues around calling women ‘crazy’, but can’t really help itself in depicting women as unreasonable and at times, brittle. But these are all just trials sent to test Jack, who segues in and out of flashbacks and cycles, albeit the edits are nice and smooth throughout.
Of course, a lot hinges on how likeable you find this character, given that the entire focus of the film is this guy’s wellbeing, and it seems likely that director/co-writer Tim Hautekiet intended Jack to be a kind of modern-day Everyman: flawed, vulnerable, but trying his best. But this broke, money-borrowing, weed-smoking, Xanax-eating guy can’t be for everyone, and what the film can’t quite do is make him genuinely sympathetic, despite his flaws. Without that engagement, the journey becomes a slog, another facet of therapy, therapy, therapy in a world full of therapy. The film becomes an elaborate riff on ‘taking control’ and ‘knowing thyself’. Quantum therapy, if you will.
Looking at other reviews after my own viewing – and excepting the slew of highly suspicious, glowing IMDb/RT reviews from accounts with only one review apiece (oh, come on) – it seems I’m in the minority on not loving this one. But as above, without feeling that draw towards Jack, his Pilgrim’s Progress towards a more enlightened life simply can’t land. That all being said, it’s appreciable that the team has wrung a lot from a little here, with some moments of ingenuity and the intention to jazz up the indie staples of a limited set and small cast. But tearing a hole in spacetime purely to indulge a narcissist is bound to be divisive, and so it turns out to be.
Me, Myself & the Void was released to VOD on October 1st 2024.