Director: Aaron Schimberg

I’m really working overtime on this one. It’s one of those films—which I personally love so much—that resists explanation, resists definition. But I’ll do my best because I really want you to see this one.

The film opens with a quote from Pauline Kael, written across the screen: “Actors and actresses are usually more beautiful than ordinary people. And why not?”

It’s clear quite early on that this film is satire, an examination of the expectations of beauty, the falseness of cinema, and the standards by which we treat those who don’t meet those expectations.

It’s another film-within-a-film (I just finished One Cut of the Dead), a film about a pretentious German (maybe) director shooting his first American film (Marked for Life) about a doctor who operates on the disfigured, trying to make them look “normal.” (Think Eyes Without a Face.) Herr Director (no, seriously…that’s what he’s called) has decided to cast actual disfigured people as extras in the film. The bus full of them arrives, introducing us to Rosenthal, a man with neurofibromatosis (Adam Pearson). He is paired up with Mabel Fairchild (the underrated Jess Wexler), an actress who plays Frieda, the doctor’s blind sister, in Marked for Life. Much like her character in the film, Mabel can’t make eye contact with Rosenthal. At least at first.

As Chained progresses, director Aaron Schimberg continuously blurs the line between what is film (Marked) and what is reality (Chained). For example, we aren’t quite sure, when a scene starts, if we’re watching Mabel or Freida. Characters adopt and drop accents. And there’s a visual feel of the film being set during the time of Marked for Life, but the dialogue reminds us that it’s really set in modern-day America. And if that wasn’t confusing enough, the disfigured extras are forced to stay in the hospital where Marked is being shot, further blurring the lines between cinema and “reality.” At night, they decide to work on a film of their own, adding even more confusion.

If that all sounds hard to follow—it is. The film is multi-layered, like an onion. But it works. Does it ridicule stereotypes about the differently abled? Yep. When Mabel asks a fellow actor (Stephen Plunkett) if he could tell whether or not someone’s eyes were “beautiful” simply by feeling them, he says that he, personally, couldn’t do it. “I’m not ‘a blind.’ I don’t read braille. I don’t have superhuman musical abilities.” Does it ridicule the vapidity of Hollywood and the way they treat the differently abled? Yep. Early on in the film, Mabel is interviewed by a writer, and when asked if the film is exploitative in its casting choices, she points out that the director had asthma as a child, “or something like that…so it’s a very personal, like, sad tale.” And, she adds, “he says he grew up in the circus.”

The acting is good, especially from Wexler and Pearson, who really bring heart to the film. There’s a marvelous scene where we see Mabel and Rosenthal watching the dailies. The lighting on the (unseen) scenes shade the pair’s faces, and we see Mabel work through a series of emotions, reacting to the cruel lines of dialogue as she glances over at Rosenthal.

This has been one of my longer reviews, and yet I still feel like I haven’t done the film justice. Don’t go into this expecting a straightforward film; that’s not what it is. I hate to use the term “metacinema” to describe it, but I’m going to. IMDb marks this film at a 6.8. I really liked it, although it’s clearly not a film for everyone. If this review has intrigued you even a little, I’m giving it a 7.5. If it sounds like it’s not your cup of tea? It’s not. Go ahead and skip it. (running time 1:31)