Contentious films have a tendency to be contentious as a result of having something interesting, but unpopular, to say. Such is the case with Jason Banker’s Felt. Having had an equal share of laudations and condemnation, Felt clearly strikes a nerve worth talking about in the ongoing dialogue of bringing feminist rhetoric to a traditionally male-dominated popular culture. Unfortunately, the limitations of Banker’s style hinder Felt’s conceptual weight.
Part-autobiographical and part dark fantasy, Felt follows Amy, a fictionalized version of lead actress and co-writer Amy Everson, as she goes through life following an intentionally cryptic experience of sexual assault. Along the way, she meets Kenny (Kentucker Audley), a caring guy with the potential to heal her wounds. Interspersed with this basic story are fantastical scenes in which Amy dons various grotesque suits and wanders around a forest.
Shot in typical new independent style, Felt blends the artifice of cinema with the spontaneity of real life and improvisation. While the project initially began with Banker shooting snippets of lead actress and co-writer Amy Everson’s life, it changed along the way into staged scenarios, much in the same way the movie itself switches between the cold realities of Amy’s life and her idealized and fantastical forest excursions.
This style of filmmaking has the power to be either compelling or dreadfully drawn-out, and it’s a sadness that Felt falls into the latter realm. Scenes seem to go on for hours, in part because the actors desperately try to work with nothing. There are times when this process pays off, such as a captivating little scene in a bar, and times when the audience is desperately waiting for the end to come.
The highlight of the film, however, is the character of Amy. The question is not what she does, but why she does it. Throughout the course of the film, interactions with other characters, including a STEM philistine critical of Amy’s art, reveal depths of character and remnants of trauma more telling than any visual depiction of the act itself could ever be. Felt has been described as a horror film, but it is more akin to an unsettling dramatic tragedy, a portrait of a woman broken by trauma in a constant downward spiral that is made all the more chilling by its realism.
Amy Everson as “Amy” in Felt. Photo Courtesy of Amplify.
In that perspective is where the real strength of the movie lies. Amy is so heartbreakingly fleshed out that her actions are clearly the result of something larger than herself. A perspective not often seen in film, it’s a welcome change to see the terrifying reality of sexual abuse survivors. It’s a world that seems so decidedly evil, a world that stifles the voices of the people that need to be heard. Because of this, we see her response as a justified rebellion against the constraints of a system that devalues her.
All that being said, it’s nevertheless difficult to move past the film’s surface and judge it on its conceptual elements alone. Simply put, the film is occasionally visually engaging, unique, and insightful, but also equal parts dull and overwrought.
The filmmakers deserve a massive credit for bringing this story to the screen, and it’s true that doing away with its improvisational element might endanger the realism of it, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that a bit more structure could push the narrative into a direction that reveals a more cohesive vision. As it stands, Felt is frustratingly middling. That is not to say that the film is required to conform to the generic standards of traditional Hollywood filmmaking, but rather that a bit of dialogic refinement would make some scenes feel more substantial.
Of course, the directors’ intent may have been to make certain scenes feel unremarkable. Perhaps the intent was to underlie the tragedy of Amy’s situation with the normalities of life. If that was the case, then it was simply an element that didn’t work with some of the more fantastic elements of the film.
Watching it, one gets the distinct sensation of how the movie was filmed, with all of its uncertainty and on-the-go creation coalescing into a product that shows promise, but not results. That being said, Felt is still a film that is worth watching. It’s not enjoyable, but it’s a story that should be heard. Add to that an aesthetic consistency, and it becomes clear that Felt is an audacious, unique, and insightful film weighed down by its narrative inadequacies.