"Under the Silver Lake" (I think the lake is not important enough throughout the film to warrant this title inclusion) is a new award-winning 2018 movie written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, his third full feature movie and he is still off to a good start for sure as I certainly enjoyed the watch here. But it could have been a bit shorter in my opinion as this one runs for a massive 2 hours and 20 minutes. The central character is played by Andrew Garfield and you don't see him too often in movies these days, which is a bit of a pity as I like him and I am sure many females do too as he is pretty handsome still pulling off that boyish thingey. Now before we go too much into physics, I think he is also a gifted actor and most other dudes his age would not have been as good as he was being in almost every scene in this extremely long film. Nobody else has much screen time either. Keough looks pretty stunning too and appears very early and very late, but not even there makes as much of an impact as Garfield. It is his movie.

Sadly, the script is not always on par with his performance. I think this could have been an amazing crime thriller, one of the best in recent years while still being the good character study it is without a doubt. But all these references about conspiracy theories, hidden symbols and messages etc. add very little for me and I think this is also the kind of stuff that can only come from one writer, not a duo or so, who is in a perfect scenario also the director the way it is here, so he can get his vision 100% through. But maybe it worked better in his mind than in reality eventually. Like the best example is really the way Garfield's character makes the connection between the map in the comic book and the numbers or how he decrypts the message from the song. That just didn't feel right. Yes the main character is as intelligent as he is misguided, but still there's no way anybody could have made the connections Garfield's character comes up with here. Not over the course of a few months and certainly not within a few minutes like he does here. Quite a shame. The dog references, the skunk, the parrot (a lot about animals here),but also the rich society guy could have made for a quality crime thriller with interesting subplots for sure, but it does feel a bit shallow frequently and just not elaborated on as much as it could have been. Instead, the rich dead guy's daughter shows up constantly out of nowhere surprisingly. She also results in the motive the main character loves and loved already as a child. And while this could have been a truly defining moment of the film and certainly was intended to this way, it just did not work out. Not at all. Quite a pity. I think the vision and ideas were there without a doubt. But the execution just wasn't and eventually it turns into a film with all these metaphors and symbolisms, but very little under the surface and you cannot build a really good film on a loose foundation like this one.

Finally a few words on individual scenes like the one at the end when our "hero" meets the cult. I liked that one actually. Even if the route leading up to this revelation did not feel right a lot of the time, it was an okay solution I suppose and the actors there were doing a fine job and the minimalistic camera work also was spot-on, which is a bit surprising as this is really when the film is at its best despite being at its most minimal. Now let me refer to my favorite scene here: That would easily be the one showing us a very special meeting between a song writer who owns a priceless Kurt Cobain guitar and the main character and what it turns into. It's never about the violence that comes from it, but all the song references there were pretty amazing and that scene may have been very much over the top, but it was fast, bold and just very impressive and as a consequence extremely memorable. Was it Jeremy Bobb? I am not sure really, it seemed to me like a cameo by a much more famous actor, but yeah if it was him, then good for him as he really stole the scene, if not the movie, with that performance regardless of how short it was. It was still very big. Okay I think that is all really. So overall, let me say it was a good film, but not a great one, not the great one it could have been all in all given the potential of the story. But it is still worth seeing, especially if you like Garfield as an actor. I give it a thumbs-up as a whole, but it should be nowhere near anybody's top-of-the-year lists.

Quite a different experience, which is hard to say about films in recent years. Takes a while to get going but worth the wait

Having heard very little about this film and but remembering its trailers, perhaps accidentally watched this film lesser on not so purpose.

Now this film has the feel of a neo noir type independent and lesser Hollywood atmosphere, and for those reasons it works. The atmosphere is very subtle and mysterious and there are a few things along the way which keeps are interest.

Unlike many films today, Under the silver lake is not so predictable which makes it a joy to watch. The runtime is quite length and at times may seem as if the film is about to end, then suddenly some other discovery occurs.

Enjoyable film simply for the adventure we see the character of Andrew Garfield goes through. Although the ending was somewhat of a letdown.