The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, May 4-10
Faults (2014)
Directed by Riley Stearns
Like most debut features, Stearns’s slow-burning thriller about a mind control expert tasked with prying a young woman away from a mysterious cult is loaded with popular influences. The familiar but claustrophobic setting (a dingy motel room) is swiped from Rod Serling’s playbook for escalating tension. The subtle undertones of black humor and perverse sexuality echo the films of Yorgos Lanthimos. And journeyman actor Leland Orser plays the boorish cult specialist with an oily charm and comic desperation reminiscent of many Coen Brothers creations. Yet the film never feels derivative, partly because of its strong lead performances (Stearns’s wife, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, co-stars), but mostly because of its confident transition from a by-the-numbers dark comedy to something unexpected and disturbing. A.J. Serrano (May 10, 7:30pm at the Nitehawk’s “Local Color,” with Stearns and Winstead Q&A to follow)