
Ethan (Joe Swanberg) is a director who aims to make meaningful art films, but is struggling with a creative slump and disengagement with his work. His girlfriend Claire (Kate Lyn Sheil), is an actress whose career is beginning to take off. She has accepted the lead part in a werewolf movie being directed by talented young horror filmmaker Ben (Ti West). Ethan's depression leads to jealousy over both Claire's success and her increasingly close relationship with Ben. Ethan deci... (Full plot summary below)
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Ethan (Joe Swanberg) is a director who aims to make meaningful art films, but is struggling with a creative slump and disengagement with his work. His girlfriend Claire (Kate Lyn Sheil), is an actress whose career is beginning to take off. She has accepted the lead part in a werewolf movie being directed by talented young horror filmmaker Ben (Ti West). Ethan's depression leads to jealousy over both Claire's success and her increasingly close relationship with Ben. Ethan decides to retaliate against Claire by casting her best friend Charlie (Amy Seimetz) in a romantic role opposite himself in his new film. As pettiness and jealousy spiral out of control within their relationship, Claire begins to slip into a surreal fantasy world that more closely mirrors her role in the werewolf film than that of her real life. Largely improvised Silver Bullets draws inspiration from Chekhov 's The Seagull and Roman Polanski's Bitter Moon, while using David Foster Wallace as a reference point to explores fame, depression and suicide.
Leave your thoughts about Silver Bullets.
| Slant MagazineJaime N. ChristleyJoe Swanberg's idea of making audiences "happy" is by acknowledging what his supporters and detractors have been saying about him for a number of years, but presenting these things within the same game of elliptical story-unraveling and confession that's governed most of his other films. |
| NewsBlazeKam WilliamsMumblecore movement explores horror genre, Joe Swanberg-style! |
| The A.V. ClubAlison WillmoreThe line between "highly personal" and "navel-gazing" varies depending on one's feelings toward the person offering up the serving of self-contemplation, but Silver Bullets' introspection feels earned. |
| Village VoiceMark HolcombSilver Bullets is the most affecting "horror" movie I've seen in a while, as Swanberg ignores tired supernatural scare-flick trappings and locates terror in the shadowy, passive-aggressive process of making, and watching, movies. |
| The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisSilver Bullets neither pleases the eye nor stimulates the mind. |
| User ReviewMatthew SIf not for the obvious limitations of the budget, Swanberg most likely would have made an exceptional meditation on the artist, the artistic process and relationships. Even still, he has crafted a smart and potent little cinematic exorcise in the surreal. This is not a horror film. This is an experimental film about art and those who create it -- and the impact it can have on their lives. It works. However, it should be noted that SILVER BULLETS falls into that "love/hate" category. An individual will either love this film or hate it. ...but that usually signals important art. |
| User ReviewLee MIf not for the obvious limitations of the budget, Swanberg most likely would have made an exceptional meditation on the artist, the artistic process and relationships. Even still, he has crafted a smart and potent little cinematic exorcise in the surreal. This is not a horror film. This is an experimental film about art and those who create it -- and the impact it can have on their lives. It works. However, it should be noted that SILVER BULLETS falls into that "love/hate" category. An individual will either love this film or hate it. ...but that usually signals important art. |