A writer’s worst nightmare is to have their work unwillingly changed, ripped from their hands, and butchered right in front of them. Michael Solace, directed by Chris Esper and written by Kris Salvi, is this fear come to life. A nightmarish odyssey into the soul of one especially neurotic writer.
The film follows the titular character Michael Solace (played with pitch-perfect anxiety by Justin Thibault), a hyper-sensitive screenwriter who is desperately holding onto his artistic integrity. When Michael’s agent Monica Vallencia (played with delightful suspicion by Diana Porter), presents the idea of selling his script to a studio, the world around him takes a dark, nightmarish turn. Michael’s deepest fear is those pesky studio heads who would certainly, in his eyes, massacre his work. Compartmentalizing couldn’t be more foreign for Michael; the prospect of his script being changed is so frightening that his world transforms into a hellscape of prospective threats.
The film takes this psychological fear and infuses it into every element, making us not only see Michael’s fear but also experience it ourselves. This viscerality results from the craft elements working as a cohesive whole. The cinematography (shot with a sharp, precise eye by John Westcott) is tight and claustrophobic, edited at a quick pace (Chris Esper) that heightens the sense of potential danger around every corner. The production design (meticulously crafted by Gabrielle Rosson) gives the spaces a definitive otherworldly quality. The sound design and score (hauntingly perfected by Jimmy Jackson) work hand in hand with the film’s visual language, using the constant influx of sound to heighten the overwhelming anxiety of our experience. From a craft perspective, Michael Solace is firing on all cylinders, allowing us not just to see the abject terror of being Michael but to feel it, right alongside him.
Because we spend so much time living in Michael’s mind, we come away wanting only to know more about the writer himself. The film goes to great – and successful – lengths to make us feel his fear, but does less to make us understand where this fear comes from. Specifically, who is Michael Solace other than just an anxious writer? We get the sense he thinks his script is personal to him, but even that seems to be more of a comedic moment than a true confession. Perhaps if the story had included a few more breadcrumbs as to why this fear is so domineering, why it’s inescapable to this writer specifically, we would more thoroughly understand the character’s motivations. In this way, we come away wishing, at moments, the dreamscape was utilized as a vehicle to understand the why behind his neurosis, not simply to understand the fact that it’s there.
Despite this, Michael Solace understands the predicament every artist has had to reckon with: Fame and fortune, or artistic integrity? It takes this question and puts Michael to the test, forcing him to confront his fear in a viscerally entertaining fashion. For Michael, this isn’t just a problem over a script, but the central dilemma of his existence.
