Director: Amanda Kramer
Writer: Amanda Kramer
Stars: Juliette Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Melanie Griffith
Synopsis: A woman swaps bodies with a chair, and everyone likes her better as a chair.
“You wouldn’t know to look at her,” an off-screen voice says at the beginning of Amanda Kramer’s By Design, “but Camille is a secure and satisfied person.” Ah, the one thing every person wants to hear. (Hey, you know that guy over there? He might look cripplingly self-conscious and depressed, but he’s not! Huh! Whaddayaknow?) But when you give Camille (Juliette Lewis) a long, probing look, this regrettable observation couldn’t be more spot on. The “you wouldn’t know to look at her” part, that is. Her brow is perpetually furrowed; she’s constantly opening her mouth, itching for the opportunity to speak, but too passive to fill the brief void of silence when it appears for fear of saying something unagreeable; her napkin sits idly by, waiting for tears to fall so that it can catch them. Call her a desperate empath or call her the worst possible brunch companion imaginable, but you’d be right to notice that she sure doesn’t look like a secure nor satisfied individual.
Perhaps that’s because Camille is not speaking for herself (the film’s inner voice belongs to Melanie Griffith’s narrator) at least not in the monologue that opens Kramer’s batshit performance art-coded dramedy, the sort of film that the Sundance Film Festival loves to screen and its viewers love to discuss, their varying opinions running wild. In other words, it’s a film written and directed by Amanda Kramer, an eccentric mind whose movies tend to be attention-worthy messes rather than the scintillating social dissections that they set out to be. And you know what? That’s far better than the many more aimless films released each year that believe their scope to be the universal purview. If you’re going to go big by going small and deranged, do it with reckless abandon.
Kramer might be the best filmmaker on the planet in that regard, but that doesn’t inherently mean that the films in question are successful. Watchable, discussable, and endlessly fascinating, yes, but not necessarily of the same quality as something by David Lynch or Bertrand Bonello – i.e., the sort of works so baffling yet rewarding that watching them again and again only reassures what feels like adoration and awe yet manifests itself in confusion and initial ire. By Design, like many of the great efforts of other singular minds, commits so hard to its premise that it falters in the execution that follows, that aforementioned commitment veering into territory that realizes far less than it believes it has in terms of commentary on/the examination of the human condition. But again, wouldn’t you rather be subject to that as opposed to the relentless peddling of an artist who believes their self-prescribed brilliance remains untouched?
Needless to say, your mileage will vary when it comes to how willing you are to give even a somewhat similar approach the time of day. Even more conflicting will be the premise itself: “A woman swaps bodies with a chair, and everyone likes her better as a chair.” Metaphorical? Of course not, for when Camille and her friends Irene (Robin Tunney) and Lisa (Samantha Mathis) move on from their parfait-laden lunch to a furniture store with a cluttered showroom that would send László Toth into a paralyzing panic attack, Kramer’s protagonist experiences a moment that we all long for, the one where we lock eyes with something that abruptly alters our brain chemistry and unlocks a part of ourselves that we weren’t aware existed, or at least weren’t willing to put on display. Normally, this “something” is a someone, perhaps an object of admiration or a potential romantic partner, with the universal behavior being that we take up a vested interest with them because they have or represent something we want. For Camille, it’s not a human being, but an expensive wooden chair that looks like it belongs in a university library. The only remarkable thing about it is how transfixed Camille’s companions are with it, a response that initially makes her desperate to own it, and later, once it’s sold to a different customer (Alisa Torres) hoping to soothe the ex-boyfriend she recently dumped (Mamadou Athie), to become it. (Cue the innumerable and insufferable references to The Substance; “Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself?”)
To its credit, By Design only gets weirder from there. It’s a body-swap movie, but not one that is as interested in what it means to inhabit something new as it is with what happens when you leave your old vessel behind. Lewis’ commitment to the bit is a delight, but it’s Athie who gets the real showcase as his character, a part-time piano player named Olivier, becomes just as infatuated with the chair as Camille was originally, if not more so. It might sound odd to note that the sensual intimacy between this chair and its newfound occupant is among the more clever gambits we’ve seen in recent memory, and perhaps that has more to do with how Athie moves his body and speaks to himself once he’s in the chair. “We’re just two seats, aren’t we?” he whispers into its… ear? The details don’t matter nearly as much as the connection itself. The same goes for why Camille’s mother (Betty Buckley) is so insistent upon forcing flamboyant pairs of shoes onto her lifeless daughter’s feet despite the lack of response, as well as for why Camille’s stalker, played with unwavering dedication by Clifton Collins Jr., elects to tap dance in front of her moments before disaster strikes.
It would be cheesy to say that Kramer crafted such a peculiar tale with intentions to offset an audience’s expectations by design, but there’s something to be said for drawing viewers in with a premise they simply have to see put in action. Who are we kidding: If you were attending a festival, or better yet, scrolling the web in an effort to find a movie to watch this evening, how could you not be the least bit curious by a logline that promises a woman growing so obsessed with a piece of furniture that she simply must become the seat itself? In fact, that By Design never really spreads its wings beyond the symbolic conclusions one is bound to draw from its description, and its tireless tone will cause wear and tear to one’s patience more than the chair every houseguest clamors to plop down in over the years. But as Griffith’s narrator notes early on, referencing a quote that hangs on Camille’s wall at home, “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” To respond negatively to Kramer’s ingenuity as a filmmaker, especially here, is to endure self-inflicted harm. Instead, why not try having a seat, watching By Design with mental abandon, and being thankful that you’re not viewed as the inanimate object with which everyone wants to plant their ass?
