In the slender and lovely 'The Actor,' an amnesiac clings to his identity

“The Actor” is an identity-crisis fable acceptable sometime successful post-WWII America, erstwhile jazz was inactive arsenic raucous arsenic euphony got. The twelvemonth is hazy, the determination is vague and the images are brushed and fuzzy astir the edges. Crisp details can’t beryllium due to the fact that our lead, Paul Cole (André Holland), has amnesia. A subordinate of a traveling theatre troupe, Paul has been abandoned successful a small-town infirmary aft a cuckolded hubby conked him connected the head. At least, that’s the communicative he’s been told.

The movie is arsenic slim and ephemeral arsenic Paul’s reality. One happening that’s definite is that Paul is from the archetypal procreation to turn up absorbed successful screens. Film and TV are the model these characters usage to explicate life, from the soap opera that assures its viewers that the amusement is simply a spot “where everyone knows their lines” to a maniac who suggests Paul beryllium clobbered again due to the fact that she erstwhile saw a movie successful which that fixed a breached brain.

In turn, the filmmaker Duke Johnson (who co-directed Charlie Kaufman’s soul-wrenching stop-motion play “Anomalisa”) uses creation to explicate his characters. Stranded determination successful the Midwest with nary family, friends oregon hobbies, Paul wanders into a movie theatre that’s playing a cartoon successful which Casper the Friendly Ghost meanders to the moon. The accusation is clear: Paul is simply a mislaid soul.

“The Actor,” co-written by Johnson and Stephen Cooney, is based connected “Memory,” a mislaid publication by the prolific pulp novelist Donald E. Westlake, which was published lone aft the author’s decease successful 2008. (Westlake is astir celebrated for his Parker bid that’s been reworked to prima everyone from Robert Duvall to Jason Statham, and helium besides wrote the publication for the John Cusack and Annette Bening transgression caper “The Grifters.”) Technically, the communicative is simply a mystery-thriller. Paul doesn’t cognize who helium was — oregon should beryllium — and his quest to find retired is beset by antagonists. A agrarian bull (Toby Jones) wants to apprehension him for adultery. A indebtedness shark (also Jones) demands a chopped of his wages from a tannery wherever Paul’s trying to gain autobus fare to the Manhattan code connected his driver’s license.

Gemma Chan and André Holland successful the movie “The Actor.”

(Neon)

But really, the halfway conflict is Paul’s interior conflict. He can’t determine whether helium should enactment enactment successful the clasp of a charming section kook, Edna (Gemma Chan), oregon caput backmost to the metropolis wherever helium suspects helium enjoyed a much glamorous life. Arcade Fire instrumentalist Richard Reed Parry’s fantastic people translates his options into music: Homespun Americana is each passionate strings, portion New York City is hard and accelerated percussion that keeps gait with the pitter-patter of Paul’s racing heart. It’s the dependable of an approaching breakdown.

The amnesia conceit allows the movie to item its artificiality: painted backdrops, stages that recede into blackness, supporting players recast successful aggregate roles. (Stay for the end-credits uncover of which histrion played what — the MVP is 71-year-old Irish histrion Olwen Fouéré, who disappears into some antheral and pistillate disguises.) Editor Garret Elkins is deft astatine disorientation. I loved a gag wherever Paul gets whacked from 1 broadside of the framework by a vertebrate and from the different broadside by a duffel bag. Meanwhile, cinematographer Joe Passarelli moves the camera similar it’s playing catch-up, utilizing pans to amusement america that Paul isn’t alert of thing that’s not close successful beforehand of his face. Hours, adjacent weeks, contention by successful the seconds Holland takes to locomotion from 1 acceptable to another; later, a changeable of Halloween stars melts into an representation of Christmas snow.

Johnson has been trying to accommodate “Memory” for 10 years. But of each the amnesia tales successful existence, I’m not definite wherefore helium wanted to marque this one. He’s uninterested successful the book’s driving point: Paul’s conflict to marque consciousness of a satellite wherever petty rules person supplanted assemblage and communal sense. Between the precocious outgo of housing, the unhelpful unemployment offices and the cops uncovering excuses to harass him, Paul can’t find his footing, fto unsocial his mode home. Over the people of the novel, helium learns again and again that the strategy sets radical up to fail. His representation lapse hasn’t made folks meaner — it’s conscionable made Paul unaccustomed to the hassle. “It’s excessively absurd to beryllium a tragedy,” Westlake’s Paul sighs. “This full spot is stupid.” Ultimately, that Paul realizes it doesn’t substance who helium is. The regular grind dehumanizes everyone.

But Johnson has bent the caller wrong retired and turned it into, of each things, a romance. Beyond a vague hamlet-good, urban-bad critique — a sleight of manus successful which the heartland folks triumph retired implicit those rapacious metropolis dwellers — he’s little funny successful the extracurricular satellite than helium is successful Paul’s ain affectional landscape. Can a kinder nine rise a antheral who deserves love? We get hints that Paul’s erstwhile aforesaid was a louse, but Holland’s grin is truthful brushed that it’s hard to judge helium was ever a nasty, selfish jerk. His mentation of the quality can’t adjacent turn a personality.

It’s confounding that Johnson ignores the book’s brutal existentialism. But it’s arsenic fascinating that different parts of the communicative get their hooks successful him. A caller — immoderate portion of art, truly — functions similar a dream. You drawback onto the bits that resonate. It’s wherefore radical tin permission the aforesaid movie with wholly antithetic interpretations. They mightiness disagree, yet that doesn’t marque either of them wrong. Willfully obtuse, perhaps, but that applies much to bad-faith viewers trying to get their blistery takes to spell viral.

Perhaps Johnson’s ain decade-long conflict to marque “The Actor,” lone his 2nd film, inspired him to dwell connected the worth Paul puts connected being an artist. Actors are special, this Paul believes; helium tin perceive it successful a nurse’s excited trill erstwhile she reveals to him his past job. “I was — I am — an actor,” Paul tells Edna connected their archetypal date, adjacent though helium couldn’t punctuation a enactment of Shakespeare. As a counterpoint, erstwhile Paul makes the aforesaid boast to the hiring manager astatine the section tannery, she circles “unskilled labor.”

Paul clings to his aged presumption — it puffs him up. But I fishy that Johnson appreciates the gulf betwixt the glamorous thought of moving successful the arts and the bitter world of intermittent paychecks. And the benignant of acting Paul has done — signifier shows, unrecorded soap operas — evaporates arsenic soon arsenic his enactment is over. Art is obscurity adjacent arsenic imperishable as, say, the penny loafers Paul helps marque astatine the factory. Art whitethorn not adjacent beryllium a sturdy capable instauration connected which to physique a life. Even though “The Actor” sticks to the misty past, its anxieties are crystal wide successful the present.