ATLRetro

A IS FOR ALEX (2014); Dir. Alex Orr; Starring Katie Orr, Alex Orr and Daniel Kelly. Atlanta Film Festival.

By Andrew Kemp
Contributing Writer

Isn’t it about time somebody gave Fake Wood Wallpaper a blank check?

There’s some conflict of interest in that question, since the FWW team is based in Atlanta, and of course I, like most people, enjoy seeing a local team succeed. My support and praise, however, has more to do with access than homerism. To date, it’s simply been easier to see FWW’s films if you’re here in town, which is why I keep seeing them do more with less than just about anybody else in the indie scene. I’m ready to see them do more with more.

Last year, FWW and director Mike Brune hit the Atlanta Film Festival with CONGRATULATIONS!, a standout film due in large part to its aggressive strangeness. Fake Wood Wallpaper makes films as if allergic to cliché, and that remains true even as their newest film, A IS FOR ALEX, hikes into the most heavily-tread of indie premises, the disaffected man-child who needs to grow up. Director Alex Orr plays the man-child, a version of himself who doubles as an inventor when not bantering with his real-life wife (Katie Orr). Katie’s pregnant with the couple’s first child; he mopes in a corner, worried that he’ll suck as a father. For there the film unspools the usual scenes—the weeks progress and the baby grows, Alex doubts his ability to be a father, Katie tells him to stop crying in the bathtub. He can’t pull himself together. Is it true about those “brain chemicals” that make parents love their kids? Alex isn’t so sure.

And why would he be? Alex’s fears about impending procreation are justified by the world around him. The mechanical bees he’s invented to aid pollination wreak havoc across the city. A video of Alex’s early sex act lands his mother in jail. Every act of creation goes sour for Alex, like some mixed-up Midas with cursed genitalia. Meanwhile, Katie grows closer to the due date, carrying what could be Alex’s next big disaster.

This is deeply personal, even indulgent, material but A IS FOR ALEX is too self-aware to get lost in its own ennui. Orr is hyperaware of the traps this kind of movie can stumble into and bakes in some meta release valves to keep the shit from getting too real. Some scenes jump the fourth wall, pulling back to reveal the set and the actors on it, who usually discuss topics like the film’s sentimental tone or its planned artificial finale. Other scenes spiral into fantasy and elaborate computer effects. Other scenes appear to exist for no other reason than because they’re funny. A IS FOR ALEX takes great pains to engage its audience or at the very least apologize for dragging the viewers through Alex’s head. The film is indulgent—because of course it is—but the movie knows what it is and, most importantly, reminds the viewer that it knows this. I’m not sure the film could be even a moment longer than its 74 minutes, but its meta techniques carry it far while it’s here.

As the lead in his own film, Orr has a tough responsibility. It’s never easy to make a film so blatantly about yourself because if it sucks, audiences may get stuck in a negative feedback cycle: they hate the movie, so they blame the filmmaker, who sits there on the screen inviting that hatred, and so on and so on until somebody loses an eye. But Orr is pleasantly low-key, marked by such persistent self-deprecation that he’s easy to like. The tougher role belongs to Katie. While obviously very (for real) pregnant, she has to duck and weave through her performance, chafing at Alex’s aimlessness while never slipping all the way into the rote ‘disapproving wife.’ Katie’s breezy rapport with Alex (never a slam dunk with real-life film couples) grounds the film and elevates what could have been a thankless role into a highlight.

A IS FOR ALEX is an egotistical film by definition and yet it does almost nothing except take potshots at itself. As an act of creation, it’s as idiosyncratic as its creators. It invites you to laugh and enjoy the moment, and then prods you in the ribs for falling for it. Amidst all of the robot bees, jailhouse drama, and ads on the moon is a gently fretful movie about the anxiety of making anything—a person most of all, but anything, really, including movies. If the creator is flawed, as are we all, then what hope is there for the creation? A IS FOR ALEX suggests that these things, however stressful, tend to work themselves out along the road. I suspect the target audience for this one is small. Very small, in fact. As little as one tiny human being named Truman who will want one day to know how his parents prepared to meet him.