The Paranoids

The Paranoids

98 Minutes

The Paranoids is a dreamy, occasionally disorienting dark comedy that succeeds, not so much in making revolutionary declarations of its own, but rather in exploring stereotypical characters from an intriguing angle…yielding what I can only describe as charmingly bizarre results. Writer and director Gabriel Medina’s story drops in upon the life of a perpetually paranoid aspiring screenwriter, Luciano Gauna (played wonderfully by a hang-dog, hipster handsome Daniel Hendler). Stuck in a rut with his writing and working children’s parties as a fuzzy purple creature to pay the bills, Gauna’s idling mind fixates on the fears that consume his waking days. At first, his obsessions – of contracting HIV from casual sex encounters, say, or getting caught smoking up by his big, angry doorman – seem a little irrational; but when Manuel (Walter Jakob), an old friend turned successful Spanish TV producer, turns up for a visit, the roots of Guana’s insecurities begin to crop up and expose the anger beneath his quiet, loner façade.

Tensions run thick and deep when Manuel drops by for dinner at Gauna’s apartment, his girlfriend Sofia (Jazmin Stuart) and a beautiful stewardess friend in tow. Overcome with nervous pressure, Gauna is blind to the latter’s friendly advances and sees only his inadequacy through Manuel’s more sophisticated eyes. He can and does avoid intimacy with the stewardess (a woman so incredibly sexy, by the way, that its hard to imagine anyone in their right mind turning her down…score one for Guana on the crazy scale); but when Manuel leaves for Chile on business and drops Sofia in Gauna’s awkward and utterly unprepared hands, he finally meets his match. Stuart’s Sofia – pretty and palpably present in a down to earth, imperfect sort of way – is no stuff of fantasy; she forces Gauna to engage with her, questions his nervous tendencies point-blank, yet never succumbs to playing stereotypes of either the demanding rich girl or the domineering woman sent to shake things up. Refreshingly, she’s too normal for that – at times paranoid and peculiar herself in a way that makes hers and Gauna’s sudden friendship believable.

At the heart of their encounter, however, is Sofia’s initial and unwitting revelation to Gauna that Manuel has used him – his name, paranoia, ineptitude, every part of himself under which he is trapped – as a character in his hit television series, “The Paranoids.” Throughout his early interactions with Manuel, Gauna is dependent, deferential; but when he begins to realize that such behavior serves to fulfill a fate ordained and perpetuated by Manuel’s self-interest, the lethargy-bound Gauna slowly, steadily wakes up to real life. Medina’s pacing, if slow at times, works to his advantage as the film builds towards a climax: floating through a dreamy, predominantly darkened world of shuttered windows and smoke-fueled conversations, we are hit with the perfect degree of surprise and excitement when Gauna ‘s indignation finally spurs him to action. It may be passive, vicarious videogame action – a fitting arena for slacker Gauna to confront both his own demons (he protests, perhaps too much, “I am not a character…I mean, it’s me”) and his oppressor Manuel — but the stakes are high and the emotional payoff losses nothing for lack of bloodshed. Hendler and Jakob have marvelous faces for this type of film, evoking a tenuous balance of truth and fiction with everything except their characters’ eyes and allowing violence, complacency, triumph and fear to waver there until the very end. Together with Stuart, Hendler and Jakob turn out fresh and accomplished performances of otherwise predictable characters, and their ensemble work lends Medina’s finale – a simple, joyful ode to individual expression – the kind of charm that may not make cinema history, but nevertheless leaves one with a pleasant sense of gratitude for the simplest delights of waking life.

by Lauren Westerfield