Inside the Rain movie reviewb Benjamin Glass (Aaron Fisher) is a transfer student to a new college. He’s also bipolar or, as he likes to call it, “recklessly extravagant.” It means he brings a past history, and it winds up getting him saddled with a hearing to consider his expulsion after two purported suicide attempts. It was all a big misunderstanding.
In the wake of these events, he meets the enigmatic beauty Emma (Ellen Toland) as he awkwardly try to drown his sorrows at a strip club. They meet outside when he gets in a fight with some jerks accosting her. From such auspicious beginnings, they enter the big leagues when the pledge of a film project ups the ante of a movie within a movie. She signs on to act in the pet project he plans to use to plead his innocence at the hearing. It’ll be great.
What sets in is relational ambiguity even as Ben continues to drive his parents up the wall and terrorizes his therapist. Inside the Rain is an indie with an acerbic edge, but it’s not totally derailed by these qualities. At its core is a big dorky heart not unlike its protagonist. Where the bark is worse than the bite and the affections run deeper than the volatile showings of animosity.
Likewise, Ben’s frenetic, filterless hurricane of bluntness overwhelm the sloppy character tropes around him including the therapist (a spunky Rosie Perez) who is a thinly-veiled sounding board, useful for continually comic confrontations. Everyone has their own set of charms. There’s the key. They have it in spades.
He fills the spaces in between with escapes out of a hospital with a newfound friend (Rita Raider); he highjacks a Lyft and runs off with his parents’ jar of spare change to fund his film while later dying a valorous death on a paintball field. Fisher does yeoman’s work as writer, director, and emotional center because without him the film would lose its unequivocal vitality. He’s commanding and lovable enough to carry the picture even as the object of his affections, Emma, remains coolly aloof.
The off-kilter but strangely agreeable surf-tinged soundtrack could have been plucked from The Ventures. I’m not sure if the ending is a betrayal so much as it is an indication of our hero, our Odysseus, settling himself down and starting to figure his life out. At any rate, it’s a starting point. I don’t know all the ins and outs, but this is a comedic labor of love offering reward to the viewer who can see through any personality flaws. That’s what life’s about anyways right?
All about the Inside the Rain movie.
Inside the Rain (2020)
Directed by: Aaron Fisher
Starring: Rosie Perez, Eric Roberts, Aaron Fisher, Ellen Toland, Catherine Curtin, Paul Schulze, Rita Raider, Katie Claire McGrath, Jesse Means, Natalie Carter, Kerri Sohn, Thom Niemann
Screenplay by: Aaron Fisher
Production Design by: Sally Levi
Cinematography by: Josh Fisher
Film Editing by: Aaron Fisher, Esteban Uribe
Costume Design by: Zinnia Kim
Set Decoration by: Lauren Cunningham
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Act 13
Release Date: March 13, 2020
Visits: 98
