By Michelle Martin
Starring George Baron, Olivia Scott Welch and Nikko Austen Smith
Written and directed by George Baron
Athena Pictures
Few terms are thrown around more in film criticism than “Lynchian,” a veritable catch-all for any movie that bends the rules of reality in a vaguely frightening and overtly weird way – regardless of whether it’s worthy of David Lynch’s work. Even though it seems cliché, in the case of George Barron’s THE BLUE ROSE… “Lynchian” unabashedly applies.
The film follows two amateur detectives, Lilly (Olivia Scott Welch) and Dalton (George Baron), who are hired to solve a homicide. The culprit? Wide-eyed Sophia Steele (Nikko Austen Smith). After her husband gets a little too violent one night, the exhausted and angry Steele slices him up like he’s a piece of fresh cherry pie. At first, the case seems to be open and shut, with a mountain of evidence pointing towards a solution, but Lilly and Dalton get more than they bargained for when they discover Sophie is a member of a sinister cult. Reality becomes tenuous as they dive into a case that’s much deeper than they expected.
As mentioned, David Lynch’s imprint is all over THE BLUE ROSE – specifically, Blue Velvet (Ray Wise, aka Leland Palmer, even appears in the film), Mulholland Drive, with a little Eraserhead thrown in for good measure. The script suffers from some long dream-like sequences in its back half, which, narratively, is a difficult realm to play in and keep the audience hooked. Nightmare sequence after nightmare sequence begins to get tiring when there is not much tangible to cling to, even if there are a few fun visuals to pique the interest. Despite this, it’s hard to stay too mad at Barron’s film, knowing that the young director-writer was only 18 when he completed it. He has accomplished an enormous feat that most of us could not possibly pull together. The scale of THE BLUE ROSE is very ambitious, with large sets, intricate costumes, set design and a bright, lovely pastel color palette.
There’s an excitement for filmmaking in THE BLUE ROSE that leaps off the screen, perhaps in ways that make it feel a little untethered in an everything-but-thekitchen-sink sort of way, but, ultimately, Baron has plenty of time to hone his skills, sharpen his stories and continue to produce work he is excited by.
