Halfway by way of Porcupine, a personality we’ve simply met tosses apart an empty plastic bag throughout a yard barbecue. From his perspective, it’s an insignificant gesture, performed with no second’s thought. For us, nonetheless, it’s one which reveals every thing we have to know in regards to the man: his carelessness, his bluntness, his irritability. Porcupine feels most alive in tiny moments like these, which appear to comprise total lifetimes in essentially the most informal of particulars — although its focus tends to blur on the subject of the larger image.
Written and directed by M. Cahill, the drama appears at first to be headed within the course of utmost quirkiness, opening with a title card that signifies “a stunning quantity of what follows is true.” Jena Malone stars as Audrey, a younger girl who appears to be in a continuing state of transition — generally compelled upon her by exterior challenges (as when she’s evicted from her condo for not making the hire) and generally spurred by her personal inner restlessness (as when she toys with the thought of transferring to Vermont, as a result of why not). Nonetheless, there’s one thing inside her that yearns for deeper, extra everlasting roots. So after a stressed night time spent happening a YouTube rabbit gap about pet adoption, she places herself up for adoption as an grownup, and shortly meets a retired couple named Sunny (Emily Kuroda) and Otto (Robert Starvation-Bühler).
Porcupine
The Backside Line
High-quality particulars make this a touching, if acquainted, story of companionship.
Whereas Sunny and Audrey hit it off first, it’s Audrey’s relationship with Otto that types the emotional backbone of the film. The place Audrey is unfailingly courteous, Otto is brusque to the purpose of coldness; he can’t a lot as reply a well mannered query from Audrey about his outdated job at NASA with out scoffing that she couldn’t presumably perceive with no diploma in aeronautical engineering. However each are essentially lonely individuals, almost estranged from their blood relations and apparently with out shut mates. Theirs is a gradual and tentative bond, constructed between two individuals who can’t fairly convey themselves to confess what they imply to 1 one other, although every is moved by the opposite’s capability for compassion and consideration.
Cahill approaches their story with a fragile contact. His script is gentle on dramatic confrontations and epiphanies, and his visuals likewise draw back from intense distinction or daring hues — the entire thing seems prefer it takes place below a vibrant however cloudy sky. Although the characters have tragedy of their respective pasts, the movie slips in simply as a lot backstory as we have to perceive how they’ve come to the place they’re now. A telephone name between Audrey and her mom makes it instantly obvious why she’d be keen to seek out new dad and mom, for instance, even when we’re given few specifics on why their dialog feels so chilly and strained.
And Cahill trusts Malone and Starvation-Bühler’s attentive performances to set the temperature of their characters’ relationship daily. One in all Malone’s presents as an actor, evident in every thing from Donnie Darko to The Neon Demon, is a gaze that appears to overlook nothing. In Porcupine, she’s complemented by a efficiency from Starvation-Bühler that calls for cautious consideration — his Otto is a person who barely appears to vary expression whether or not he’s experiencing amusement or profound remorse.
Even with Malone and Starvation-Bühler’s chemistry, nonetheless, it’s laborious to not discover how well-trod their dynamic feels. Porcupine has an uncommon hook within the grownup adoption angle, however after introducing it as a method to convey Otto and Audrey collectively, the movie reverts to emotional beats acquainted from every other story of prickly adults warming to 1 one other. There’s little sense of what particular challenges, disappointments or advantages may include grownup adoption, versus baby adoption, or in distinction to different shut bonds that adults may kind by way of much less official means. Audrey and Otto’s emotional reticence can turn into a legal responsibility for the film when it’s troublesome to suss out simply how severe both of them is in regards to the thought of formalizing their ersatz parent-child relationship.
But when Porcupine doesn’t reduce as deeply because it might, it’s nonetheless an intriguing window into the lives of two characters who, because of Cahill’s precision, really feel nearly not like characters in any respect. His movie envisions Audrey as a wanderer who hardly ever spends various months in a single city — simply sufficient time to get a way of the native rhythms earlier than transferring on to pattern a little bit of another life in another place — and his film finally ends up feeling like one in every of her stopovers. It might not really feel as substantial as a brand new endlessly residence. However it seems like a spot that exists all by itself.
