This film is a compelling though flawed experiment in utilizing a dreamlike/hallucinatory narrative. An ordinary seeming young couple, Scarlett (Jena Malone) and Alex (Douglas Smith), are driving across the country to LA, but she gets ill while they're in the Southwest, and they check into a shabby chic motel (the sign shifting between reading "motel" and "hotel" is one of the first clues that you're in the realm of the subconscious). Scarlett then tells a horrifying story about her systematic abuse of a helpless, paralyzed cousin in her care (before laughing it off as though it were a joke). This story, which initially seems like a weird detour, is actually the key to the whole movie.
Like An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Jacob's Ladder, or Mulholland Dr., Bottom of the World depicts the hallucinatory final thoughts of a dying person. Scarlett, driven to suicide by guilt over her inexplicably cruel and violent acts, has deliberately overdosed, and the events of the film, until its last few moments, are occurring entirely inside her head. Consequently, Alex isn't a real person, but the kind of strange, fluid composite character you often encounter in dreams. At different times, he is her boyfriend, her ill-fated cousin, a fictitious assailant, an angel of death, and, above all, an emanation of her guilt. Likewise, a strange televangelist preacher (Ted Levine) that Alex encounters along the way is really Scarlett's father, whom her dying mind has transformed into someone giving sermons about guilt and redemption--themes that are particularly relevant to Scarlett at that moment.
Overall, I thought it was a flawed film that is worth watching, but I don't think I'll want to see it a second time. I enjoyed Levine's performance. I liked Malone, too, though I didn't quite get how someone who committed such horrifying crimes would have enough of a conscience to be overwhelmed by guilt, but that was more of a writing problem than an acting problem. I thought Smith seemed a bit too young for his role, though he was effective at times. I also appreciated the attempt to recreate the weird, fluid quality of dream narratives, but, strange as it may seem to say, I don't think the filmmakers went quite far enough in that direction.
Like An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Jacob's Ladder, or Mulholland Dr., Bottom of the World depicts the hallucinatory final thoughts of a dying person. Scarlett, driven to suicide by guilt over her inexplicably cruel and violent acts, has deliberately overdosed, and the events of the film, until its last few moments, are occurring entirely inside her head. Consequently, Alex isn't a real person, but the kind of strange, fluid composite character you often encounter in dreams. At different times, he is her boyfriend, her ill-fated cousin, a fictitious assailant, an angel of death, and, above all, an emanation of her guilt. Likewise, a strange televangelist preacher (Ted Levine) that Alex encounters along the way is really Scarlett's father, whom her dying mind has transformed into someone giving sermons about guilt and redemption--themes that are particularly relevant to Scarlett at that moment.
Overall, I thought it was a flawed film that is worth watching, but I don't think I'll want to see it a second time. I enjoyed Levine's performance. I liked Malone, too, though I didn't quite get how someone who committed such horrifying crimes would have enough of a conscience to be overwhelmed by guilt, but that was more of a writing problem than an acting problem. I thought Smith seemed a bit too young for his role, though he was effective at times. I also appreciated the attempt to recreate the weird, fluid quality of dream narratives, but, strange as it may seem to say, I don't think the filmmakers went quite far enough in that direction.