Self Reliance - Review

Rating: 4 out of 5

JAKE Johnson continues to be one of the most interesting comedic actors working today, given his ability to bounce between crowd-pleasing TV fare such as New Girl, genre-subverting blockbusters such as Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, cracking indie efforts such as the under-rated Drinking Buddies and cult TV shows such as Minx.

Sure, there's a comfort zone to the persona he projects on-screen but each effort comes with something new to think about - sometimes absurd, often relatable, and always affecting and thought-provoking.

He now branches into writing and directing with the deceptively intelligent - and likely polarising - Self Reliance, an absurdist comedy-drama that draws on everything from Squid Game to The Game with a little bit of The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind thrown in.

The premise is this: Tommy (played by Johnson himself) has become a passive bystander in his own life, until he is unexpectedly and randomly approached one day by Andy Samberg (playing a version of himself, who also figures among the film’s producers) and offered a ride in a stretched limo.

Bored and intrigued enough to accept, Tommy subsequently agrees to meet a pair of eccentric producers who inform him that he’s been selected for a chance to win a million dollars in one of the most popular games on the dark web.

All he has to do is survive for 30 days while a team of highly trained 'hunters' attempt to find and kill him.

At first outraged, Tommy then agrees to participate after discovering a loophole - that so long as he is not alone, he can't be killed.

Initially, he seeks support in this from his immediate family, only to find that his mum (with whom he still loves), nor his sisters (Mary Holland and Emily Hampshire), believe him enough to help.

He subsequently hires an elderly homeless man named James (Biff Wiff) to shadow his every move, before then hooking up with Maddy (Anna Kendrick), a fellow player who agrees to be his partner in order to claim and share the prize.

But as Tommy finds out, not everything - or everyone - is as they seem, and while family think he is going mad, other people around him develop their relationships with him in unexpected ways.

Johnson came up with the idea of Self Reliance pre-Covid, when he offered it to Netflix as a limited series, only to see it rejected.

But the idea gained fresh momentum following the pandemic and in light of the success of Squid Game - the idea for which, coupled with another bizarre Japanese game show that Johnson became aware of, seemed ripe for expanding further.

The resulting film offers commentary on a lot of issues, from the sense of loneliness and need for companionship that many of us felt during the pandemic, to the gonzo nature of Japanese game shows and the warped thinking behind them, right down to more serious issues of mental health and the lack of support there is surrounding it.

He also questions the nature of identity and self-confidence, especially within a modern environment that seems to exist to shape people into what they think they should be, rather than what the individual needs.

Hence, you can watch Self Reliance on many levels - as a commentary on mental health, as a gonzo reality game show gone awry, as a response to loneliness and the need for connection, or as a bizarre comedy that has the off-kilter energy of films like Palm Springs or David Fincher's The Game. It works on all levels - and, by Johnson's own admission, has no right or wrong answers attached.

This ambiguity may frustrated as many viewers as it delights, especially since a lot of the humour is - in true Johnson fashion - somewhat absurdist.

But there's no denying the film has imagination to burn, is fiercely (if deceptively) intelligent, and offers a central character who is genuinely worth caring about. Tommy's journey is profound and quite often moving, yet maintains an endearing everyman quality that is easy to identify with.

There's strong support, too, from the likes of Wiff, Kendrick (with whom Johnson shares a great chemistry) and Samberg and Christopher Lloyd - all of whom's presence serve to enrich Tommy's journey.

The result is a film that grips from the outset, while deftly juggling comedy, drama and a keen sense of the outrageous and unexpected. It's a wild, consistently entertaining ride which, by the very nature of its ambiguity, invites further thought and discussion for some time afterwards, while shining an intelligent light on a lot of what it means to exist, or be alive, today.