Horses, Aliens, and Depression

* Warning spoilers ahead*

“Horse Girl” is Alison Brie's Dream Come True and Every Audiences Nightmare

“Horse Girl” is not the movie most would expect. The title of the movie suggests that the plot will revolve around a woman who is obsessed with horses. The plot runs deeper. With each passing scene, the audience gets to know Sarah (Alison Brie) as she falls into a downward spiral of psychotic depression. The audience is taken on a mind trip through her eyes. As the viewers watch, they fall into a spiral just as deep as Sarah’s trying to understand “What is real?” and “What is fake?”

This traumatizing film is Alison Brie's first screenplay, and she wanted to make it personal. Brie, in an interview with Refinery29, comments on her inspiration for the film saying, “the original impetus was my fascination with my family's history with mental illness. My mother's mom, my grandmother, lived with paranoid schizophrenia. (Alison) grew up hearing stories about her (grandmother’s) mental illness and how it affected my mother, and my aunts and uncle”. Early in the film, Sarah begins to question all reality. As she looks at an old picture of her grandmother, she begins thinking that she may be her. She becomes trapped in her mind thinking that she was abducted by aliens only to become a clone of her grandmother. Brie’s original goal for the film was meant to have a film that focuses on mental health, her mother, and her grandmother. Brie did make a film that uses her family history as a format, but she also made a film that is flat and exhausting to watch.

For starters, the title is confusing and not helpful or cohesive with the overall plot of the film. Sarah does have a history with horses and visits her old horse, Willow, in her spare time. Other than a few short scenes with Sarah giving her old horse a lanyard and brushing, there is no other real reason for this film to be called “Horse Girl”. This film's title is used only to grab the attention of its watcher not portray any meaning or value toward the film.

“Horse Girl” started off with a misleading title and the film only got more confusing from there. One of the key pieces of information that the film failed to use to its full potential is Sarah’s obsession with the supernatural. At multiple points in the film, Sarah is seen watching a show called “Purgatory”. Whose focus was around a male and female detective who were working together to fight the forces of darkness. She becomes more invested in this show than her horse as the movie goes on; further showing the title’s failure to project the purpose of the film. Sarah’s fascination with the show, “Purgatory”, leads to a mind-warping delusion of her romancing the lead of the show, Darin, in a mental escapade of lust and passion. Her obsession with the supernatural, more specifically the leading man in the show, is a sadly under seen and needed piece of the puzzle that is missing from the movie. Sarah is never shown in a true obsession with one thing. She gives little pieces of herself to different wants and infatuations that reflect her truest desires but never falls into a deeper spiral than when she is thinking of her grandmother.

Throughout the film, the overarching person who follows Sarah through the scenes is her grandmother. Sarah begins the film by simply showing the fact that she and her grandmother, who struggled with mental illness, looked very similar. The film starts with Sarah and her co-worker talking about their ancestry. Later in the film, Joan gives Sarah a kit to see her ancestry. Sarah becomes very interested in her DNA, and more importantly if she has the same DNA as her grandmother. After sending in her spit in a tiny vial, Sarah begins to spiral more and more into a deeper and darker hole. Obviously this is when the show turns from a wallflower-Esque film to a sci-fi horror tragedy.

The director of this film, Jeff Baene, wanted to make a multi-genre film and so he included as many genres as possible according to Imdb. Baene is not a well-known director, and his focus, in the past, has leaned toward dark comedic films. His most well-known film to date would be “Life After Beth” circa 2014. In his most recent film, “The Little Hours”, Alison Brie was one of the stars. This film led to their collaboration in “Horse Girl”. In an interview with Screenrant, Baene states “It's a relief. I mean, it's just become sort of academic and theoretical for two years and then to finally unleash it, I mean the whole point is for an audience so it's not just an insular experience so it definitely feels good. I'm excited for people to see it”. He was saying this in regards to “Horse Girl” and this quote is so shocking considering the disturbing nature this film takes on. Baene’s quote is confusing to future audiences, because of its lighthearted tone. “Horse Girl” is a dark film, and Baene’s quote can come across that this film is more lighthearted than it is. The film falls under the multiple following genres: Comedy, Drama, Science Fiction & Fantasy according to Rotten Tomatoes. This can explain why Baene would be so beyond excited for this film to drop. It tried genre-bending with a focus on mental health, but sadly the film went too far. It focused so much on being revolutionary that it fell from grace with its writing and plot holes.

The plot began with the dark comedy that is her life. She works in a fabric store with a talkative co-worker that seems to be the only person who truly cares about her. It leads to a drama when she begins dating her roommate's boyfriend’s roommate. He, coincidentally, has the same name as her favorite TV show male lead: Darin. Darin and Sarah go on a date, while she is still mostly coping with reality. It is after the date when Sarah takes Darin to a graveyard to dig up her dead mother that she tells him all she has been thinking for the past few months.

Her outburst of honesty toward her reality showed the depth of her depression warping her mind. It shows “Sarah’s loosening grip with reality” according to The Guardian. The one thing this movie does well is show that depression runs deeper than sadness. It can control your mind and make you think that more is happening than there is, and better yet it shows that sometimes the wallflower, though tame, is going through the most. As the movie goes on, she is admitted to a mental facility where the audience learns she is the one who found her mother after she had committed suicide. Her life changed forever after that. She was not able to escape the bathroom that she had found her mother in. She could not escape the noise, feeling, or sadness captivating her. In an effort to find peace and control, she created a scenario in which the world that she was stuck in was not even real.

“Horse Girl” had something to say. It was not just a film about a girl who went insane, but the film was meant to open the eyes of those who could not understand what losing your mind to depression is like. The flaw in this plan was the chaotic method. The multiple genres failed to support the script. Following through Sarah’s eyes was confusing and lacked luster, while even the title of the film confused every audience member in the room. This movie had potential and there is definitely a needed space for films about mental health. This film does not fulfill the one requirement needed most: helping the viewer understand more than confusing them more on the subject.

The rating for this is out of five hooves. Graciously, this film is rated one hoof solely for the fact that even though the script was flawed the acting was above parr and engaging enough to finish the film.