When a film looks and feels stylishly superb, right down to the key chain a character has, the dialogue should be perfectly matched, however, there are a few liberties to take. If its a film noir, certain elements to the story and the characters that inhabit this world need to be checked off. Is there a femme fatale? Check. Is there mystery or two? Check. Is there a MacGuffin? Check. Is the atmosphere dark, full of mist and in an obscure location? Check. Are there criminals involved? Check. Is there an odd obsession with Alice in Wonderland? Well, that last one of the list is unique to Terminal and at times is overbearing.
Set in a city with no proper name, referred to as the precinct, characters meet at The End of the Line cafe at the station terminal. A strange waitress serves tea, coffee and sticky buns and offers advice to a man who wants to kills himself and gets involved with a couple of low level hitmen. The two stories take place side by side but its unclear which happened first. The two hitmen are on a job from the mysterious 'top dog' hoping to take over his legacy and his work. They are sent round in circles where the waitress keeps appearing, eventually they are holed up in a flat for two weeks, waiting for the phone to ring. All is over seen by the oddly places station master, who also seems to be conveniently just where you need him. Everything comes full circle with the truth eventually revealed in a very theatrical way, meant for the audience but its clear the waitress is enjoying herself very much.
Writer and director Vaughn Stein obviously loves film noir, very much. He even said it as the Q&A after the screening. But sometimes when you love something so much you need to take a step back and look at what you’ve done. Is it what you wanted or is it all the cliches you could possibly go for thrown into one?
I don't think its fair to rip into the film with a piano wire but there were several elements I found so jarring. Bad accents, accents that just didn't suit characters, dialogue that sounded like it had been taken from student film, the overuse of Alice in Wonderland references, the really jarring accents, all these things, overshadowned what I think Stein was trying to do. The story, bare bones, was actually really well thought out, twists and turns to shady nightclubs, stuffy flats and a old futuristic looking security room, all these parts of the film were brilliantly executed. BUT the dialogue needed a good edit. I really admired the look and style of the film, the gritty 'precinct' and creepy atmospheric train station were amazing to look at, kudos to the locations and production design teams. The star of the show was most definitely Margot Robbie is a role she created herself, she was clearly having lots of fun, its just a shame she went full on femme 'obvious' fatale.
This was the first film I booked for EIFF as I was keen to see this bizarre looking film noir with neon lights and dark tunnels. I really hoped I'd love it but I fear I was expecting too much. I'd been keen to see what Vaughn Stein does next though, maybe looking at what went wrong here and making something new? We'll wait and see.