"Sightseers" (2013)

It's all too fitting that The Cars' pop hit "Tainted Love" should play over the opening credits of Sightseers. But tainted here implies less of a love gone bad than a love that is totally fucked up. Initially Sightseers seems like a fairly conventional, quirky indie about a couple (Alice Lowe, Steve Oram) who goes on a roadtrip of discovery. Chris is a would-be writer hoping to gain some inspiration; Tina is trying to escape her overbearing mother (Eileen Davies) who still blames her for the death of the family dog.

But a growing sense of inexplicable surrealism -- there from the the film's opening moments but hard to pin down until a little ways in -- starts to creep into the film's narrative. Chris advises another man to pick up a piece of litter, and when the man refuses to do so, Chris backs the car over him. Chris plays it off as a morbid accident and Tina with her desperate optimism overlooks the incident. However, as they start going from campground to campground with the trailer, Chris begins picking off more people for perceived slights and wrongdoings. Once it becomes clear that Chris is responsible, Tina is at first unsettled but soon reveals a strange attraction to this behavior, demonstrating her own brand of subdued psychopathy.

The film from here turns into a series of escalating acts of needless, brutal violence against people who upset the two of them in one way or another. But their own worst enemy is one another; each of them spurs on even more destructive, narcissistic, and pathological actions and ways of thinking.

In many ways, the film feels like a watered-down Badlands. The protagonists are remorseless, seemingly killing for the sake of killing, and their actions take place against beautiful natural landscapes that dwarf them. The film also leaves events and actions muted and purposely under-explained. At times, the film has the dark edged, heightened absurdism of a Charlie Kaufman film, though softer and less boldly and insightfully used. It's a darkly funny film, a mocking tale piercing jagged daggers at codependency and the honeymoon phase of relationships. However, its absurdity and quirkiness often make it as conventionally, banally indie-whimsical as it tries not to be.

 Grade: ★★