In this surreal and impactful screen gem, bigatures turn into miniatures, miniatures lose their coherence and melt into curvatious female forms that become map paintings which are gradually eaten away from the edge in by Bill Murray who thinks he’s a psychiatrist called Ray Mondo when in fact he’s just plain nuts. Simultaneously, Surround Sound fades to silence and shortly we are left watching a silent, blank screen. This scintillating absence enthrals the audience for a good twenty minutes until Robin Williams, played by himself, pulls the titles down whilst reading them out faster than possible. Then he turns and screams at the audience to get out NOW before it’s too late.

In the screening I went to, most of the audience had already left at this point, except for some die-hard movie goers glued to the last fragment of nacho and slurp of watery coke. Some of them were still waiting when I left, I can only surmise, to see what would happen next.
Question: Would Scarlett and Reese reappear if one of them examined that last piece of popcorn very carefully?
Answer: What do they put on the popcorn these days?

I have to say, Meryl Streep’s talent for playing a blank screen seems limitless and her grasp of the silence, which she stylises apparently, using of a heavy Martian accent this time, has to be one of the high points of this dystopian nightmare. Scarlet Johansson and Reese Witherspoon are perfectly cast. It’s a moot point which displays the most cerebral curves but in the end – who really cares?

If ever there was blank screen worth not watching – this has to be it.

By Oonah V Joslin

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