Edmond is the curious fruit born of a marriage between screenwriter David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross) and director Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator), which one could reasonably expect to be pretty weird. A quick read of the back cover reveals the innocuous description, “a wickedly, sexy thriller with a shocking ending that will blow you away!” (or some such hyperbolic Hollywood tripe that might as well say, “It’s a movie, Dipshit. Watch it. You watch fucking Grey’s Anatomy, probably.”) It sounds exactly like the kind of boring shit I usually avoid. Without prior knowledge of Edmond’s creative principals, I would likely have missed it. God, marketing people fuck things up.*
Edmond is the horrific telling of the worst fucking night ever. He of the titular name (William H. Macy) is a typical, bored and boring New York businessman type who decides to leave his wife on a whim and a fortune teller’s flimsy advice.
Macy’s instinctual understanding of Mamet’s spartan dialogue is immediately evident in the film’s opening scenes. His ruminations over drinks with a random acquaintance on race, sex, and power are startling for their frankness, but only faintly hint at the person who is dangerously ragged about the edges. From here, Edmond is a series of increasingly bizarro sojourns into madness by an upper-class, middle-aged white man who is examining his social status for the first time. He is confused, angry, and totally unguided. He is impotent white rage. This is Falling Down without a net. Edmond resolutely confronts us with his secret fears and insecurities as he recklessly swerves in and out of oncoming traffic while looking us square in the face instead of at the road. It’s moral Chicken!
I’ll make no further awkward attempts at metaphor, nor will I reveal more of the plot. I don’t want to oversell it, but this film must be seen. HAVE YOU EVEN SEEN IT?!
*IMDB’s one-line description of Edmond reads, “A fortune-tellers teasing rumination sends Edmond Burke lurching into New York City’s hellish underworld.” Nope.
Midnight Movie Train 