A Film by the Pander Brothers
SELFLESS
Review by Jay Horton
Hitchcock would’ve had such fun with twenty-first century urban alienation. The very notion of organic architecture – or, rather, green architecture as imagined by the lead character of Selfless – and identity theft accomplished by the push of a button would’ve surely intrigued the old master. We prize a gleaming anonymity among our décor and cherish the remoteness digitalized purchasing allows. We slough off the uglier tasks to other lands. We aim to leave ourselves behind while rushing headlong toward the future, and, throughout the award winning feature debut from Portland’s Pander Brothers, the chilling repercussions of such ambitions and fears are brought vividly to life. Arnold (producer) and Jacob (director) Pander made their bones as globally renowned graphic artists, and their comic book background’s reflected in more than just the plot conceit that opens the film – to impress an attractive stewardess, our hero sketches an unkind portrait of the wrong man at the wrong time. The visual storytelling, from chilling shots of an over-cultivated Pearl District to the climactic action sequence, owes much to their former careers and seamlessly evokes the shifting moods as the lead character’s existence slowly falls apart for reasons he can’t quite understand. The story of a man’s life changed forever after a moment’s accidental interaction’s hardly new to American film, but Selfless neatly updates the more familiar elements to indulge our modern tensions regarding identity theft. After Dylan Gray, an up and coming architect specializing in sustainable skyscrapers, renders that fateful caricature, his relationship and career swiftly implode through a series of peculiarly modern mechanisms while, in a neighboring apartment, that aforementioned flight attendant and her twin sister wrestle with their own issues of self image and awareness. So much of the film’s pleasures lie in the twisting narrative surprises that we should not say much more, but, rest assured, however well-worn the storyline may seem at first, Selfless’ violent denouement appears as a complete surprise. For relative newcomers, the performances by Josh Rengert (Dylan Gray), Matt Gallini (Gray’s nemesis Wesley Stone), and Jennifer Hong (the flight attendant and her less fortunate twin) strike the right tone of immediately recognizable personae from subtly written parts – both Pander brother were credited with the screenplay. Gallini, especially, seethes dim foreboding and frustrated anger from his first words as he pleads, from one side of the cell phone, for an employer to forget about his past record. While mastering the eventual tones of terror and brutality, the cast equally luxuriates within moments of genuine humor and romance, October Moore, soon to appear in a number of high-profile features, ably fleshes out Gray’s girlfriend’s slow-building grief and irritation. Of course, perhaps the most skillful characterization comes from Portland itself. From the clinical sterility of newly-born NW condo pods to the impersonal efficiency of our airport – the vaguely-futuristic banality of PDX has never seemed so threatening – and the film-makers lovingly detail the hermetic aesthetic in which our most successful professionals imprison themselves. A good swath of the film takes place in Gray’s beautifully-appointed, utterly-soulless apartment as the camera lingers upon immaculate back-lit vertical blinds, ever hinting toward an unseen world beyond. Hitchcock would’ve loved those blinds.
