Written and directed by Ian Tripp, stuck at home with his bedridden Grandma, Saul plans to kill himself on his 27th birthday if he doesn’t lose his virginity by then. Starring: Ryan Schafer, Mickey Faerch, Augie Duke, Karl Backus, Brendan Cahalan, Amber Grayson and Paul Fisher III.
Opening up on that heavily grained, black and white aesthetic feels like quintessential, grass roots, American indie cinema. Throwing back to countless young men picking up a camera and letting their imagination run into unusual, niche, dark or messy places. It was a perfect choice to match with the tone of Sincerely Saul’s story. It’s even more fitting when Ian Tripp takes some risks and gets a little experimental, those are some of the strongest scenes that the film has to offer. It’s just a shame that outside of that, it follows quite a simple, slow path that tonally can’t quite find its footing.
Part of that is because Sincerely Saul is hitting a lot of parody notes but never commits to it. The comedy doesn’t come through strongly as it’s fighting against that monotone, drab nature of its leading character. It’s a difficult thing to create a manic adventure while your lead is a depressed, lonely, aggressive young man. It calls for something that’s grim yet heightened, eccentric yet understated, and Tripp set himself a difficult challenge. He makes a very admirable attempt to create that blend but unfortunately doesn’t entirely work. Although another element that does work well, and it would have been great to see it take over more of the film, is how it taps into old-school horror.
You can feel its influence, particularly with the score, and paired with the aesthetic stylings, it’s a solid choice but it feels as though we only see the beginnings of it and much too late. Ryan Schafer brings through a heavy dose of naivety and frustration to create the typical stunted young man. It works and credit to Schafer as he really commits to the character and captures those balled up emotions, without the maturity to deal with them, but it doesn’t feel like it has enough to say. So much of Sincerely Saul is simply establishing those qualities and it’s a good starting point but needed to move beyond that.
Sincerely Saul clearly knows what it wants to be, the ingredients for its identity are all there but the way it plays out doesn’t do justice to its potential. It’s almost reminiscent of Joel Potrykus’s Relaxer, but doesn’t feel as willing to take risks. The comedy is sporadic, and the ironic elements don’t work quite as well as they could have. Its strongest moments are when it thinks outside the box and pushes Saul into unusual places. They’re a keen indicator of what the film could have achieved if it had let those bleed into the rest of the film, rather than keeping its feet a bit too firmly in reality.
FilmCarnage.com 