Move Review: Silver Lake

Silver Lake is a movie that was on my DVR for months. With Los Angeles in the middle of a coronavirus lock down, I decided to watch the movie one night. The movie is about an author named Nathan. He has written a couple books and at the beginning of the movie earns a fellowship to start work on a third novel. When he isn't writing, he is a teacher. (As the movie progresses, I got the sense that he was probably an occasional adjunct professor at a local university.) His main group of friends are creatives. They meet up on occasional at a house where people share music and poetry. His girlfriend, Mary, has a more conventional life. She works in an office, is divorced and the mother of two. You can just tell by her name, Mary, that she leads a more conventional life.

The movie explores the two sides of life. Nathan is seen struggling with writing. To avoid his lack of inspiration, he hangs out with his mentor Howard at baseball games, helps a fellow writer named Eric with his hospital visits and gets life advice from a Buddhist mystic named Jeff. He also spends time with Mary and her two children. Mary wants to settle down in life with Nathan, but wonders if Nathan has the same desires. Of course, Mary's child Charlotte doesn't help Nathan in his decision making as she is constantly telling Nathan that she hate's him. Mary's ex-husband Dan seems to make Nathan feel inadequate. There are also financial issues that pop up. Due to the divorce, Mary is living on the edge with school and housing expenses that are above her head and Nathan feels that he needs to earn a wage that would help put a dent in those family expenses.

The movie is low-keyed and probably done on a very tight budget due to its indie nature. I loved recognizing the various locations of Silver Lake. And I loved the philosophical dialog about life and how to deal with it. There is also that tension between the creative and conventional worlds. Finally, there are a number of familiar faces such as Martin Starr of Silicon Valley (which I have to admit, I've never seen), Deborah Ann Woll of True Blood, and Seth Gilliam of The Walking Dead.

The tension in this movie is the exploration of the creative vs conventional worlds. Throughout the movie, the creative world is portrayed in a negative light. You have people hyping up their credentials. Nathan's mentor, Howard, is brilliant and yet holds some darkness to him. Those same short-falls can also be applied to the conventional world, but really aren't explored in-depth other than perhaps the troubled life of Mary's ex-husband. And yes, this movie is about choices and having to pick which world fits best for an individual. Which world will bring the most satisfaction in a holistic manner (personal finance, personal satisfaction, stability, etc etc).

This movie really feels like an autobiography for Sean McGinly, who is the writer/director of this movie. I looked him up on IMDB. This movie was released in 2018 so it hasn't been that long, but this was the last movie he's been involved in. And in the last decade, he's been attached to only 3 projects. I wonder if this was his middle finger to the life of a creative. Or maybe not. It'll be interesting to see if he writes/directs another movie in the near future. I'll need to keep an occasional eye out on IMDB, because I'd love to see where he goes next.