Two of “Bellflower’s” actors, Evan Glodell and Rebekah Brandes, embrace during the film’s final scene. (Photo Courtesy of OscilloScope Pictures)
Every once in and a while, a film comes along that is very hard to define. “Bellflower,” an independent film that chewed up the festival citcuit earlier in the year, currently takes the title as this year’s most ambiguous feature.
Not really a romance, comedy, or drama, “Bellflower” crosses over multiple genres to produce a thrilling, but sweet story line that reworks the age-old concept of boy meets girl.
“Bellflower” begins with introducing the story’s two best friends: Woodrow (Evan Glodell) and Aiden (Tyler Dawson).
Obsessed with the apocalypse, Aiden and Woodrow spend most of their free time building make-shift war machines and weapons in hopes that when the apocalypse comes, they can form their imaginary gang “Mother Medusa.”
The story really takes off when Woodrow meets Milly (Jessie Wiseman) at perhaps one of the grungiest bars ever caught on film. How exactly does Milly’s and Woodrow’s relationship begin? A grasshopper eating contest. (Love at first bite?)
In the world of “Bellflower’s,” Woodrow and Milly are the perfect couple. Both are adults who wish they never grew up, and both have this certain “I really don’t care at all” attitude that makes you root for them to get together.
To start their feature-length affair, Woodrow picks up Milly in his vintage muscle, hoping to take her on the perfect first date. However, Milly, being the free-spirit Glodell wrote her to be, suggests that Woodrow takes her to the “grungiest place he’s ever been.” (Can this couple get any more hipster?)
In Woodrow’s whiskey-dispensing car, the grungy couple take off on a road trip half-way across the country to Texas. In most movies, this scene would be sweet, charming even.
In “Bellflower,” it’s just dark. The film’s director, also the film’s star Evan Glodell, uses heavy contrast and dirty sets to relay the movie’s sagging disposition.
Throughout the rest of its 106-minute run time, “Bellflower” follows the young couple and the ultimate demise of their relationship.
As a film with almost too much going on, “Bellflower” is incredibly easy to explain: a boy meets a girl, falls in love with her, build a flamethrower, and burns stuff.
While Glodell sometimes struggles to tell the story, when the writer/actor/director is on his game, the scenes in “Bellflower” contain more raw-emotion and heartache than almost any film to be released in the past decade. And considering that this is Glodell’s first release, one can expect big things from him in the future.
As perhaps this year’s best reviewed indie film, “Bellflower” will hopefully find an audience that appreciates it for what it is: a story that shows how wrong love can go.
With solid acting, a creative story, and interesting cinematography, “Bellflower” is a budding feature film worthy of praise.
“Bellflower” opens in theaters Friday.
