Movie Review: Confidently Weird, 'Stanleyville' is Wildly Intriguing

Stanleyville is a strange dark comedy that I imagine will get better on a second viewing. I say that because the movie is dense and strange and yet it contains riches that I imagine I might uncover with another viewing. Stanleyville is the feature length debut from director Maxwell McCabe Lokos and it is a statement of weird and fascinating purpose. Set in one location and proceeding in the fashion of Squid Game, a series of games that may or may not kill the participants, the film maintains a strangely light tone amid the potential for death at any moment.

Stanleyville begins from a very intriguing place. A wife and mother, Maria (Susanne Wuest), has wandered off from her family in a daze. Desperately bored of her life as it is, Maria is immediately receptive when she’s approached by a strange man calling himself Homunculus (Julian Richings) who tells her that she’s been chosen for a life changing, transcendent competition that is set to reveal her true purpose. Why was she chosen? How was she chosen for something she’d never applied for? Maria doesn’t care, she’s all in to get out of her current state of ennui.

In a dilapidated building a disparate group of strangers awaits the start of a competition that they know nothing about. Among this group is a spoiled rich kid named Andrew Frisbee Jr (Christian Serritiello), Pancreas (George Tchortov) a dimwitted supplement salesman with dreams of being a bodybuilder. There is also Felicie (Cara Ricketts), a super competitive and secretive competitor, and finally, there is Manny (Adam Brown), a wannabe rock star. And, of course, Maria though whether she intends to compete or just watch the chaos unfold is unclear.

The competition begins on an odd note with a one minute challenge to see which competitors can over-inflate the most balloons in 60 seconds. On a board behind Homunculus is a series of 8 spaces with the names of each competitor. The winner is the competitor who wins the most of the 8 competitions which include the balloon challenge along with a challenge to create a new world anthem and a terrifying competition in which the winner must deliver to Homunculus a human ear lobe, not their own ear lobe, someone else's. Considering that the competitors are not allowed to leave this one room or risk forfeit, this gives the Ear Lobe challenge some serious tension.

Director Maxwell McCabe-Lokos crafts a very distinctive and strange tone, a comic tone but also a strangely suspenseful and edgy tone as you really never know where this story is headed. Maria, our ostensible protagonist, drifts through the story but seems to have a purpose in mind that she keeps entirely to herself. At times she seems to have almost supernatural powers but they don’t come into play often and they don’t help her win any of the competitions. Her mercurial and curious nature makes her deeply intriguing while the rest of the characters desperately search for their winning angle.

While Homunculus touts a prize that transcends beyond the boundaries of this single room into a vague sort of spiritual transcendence, everyone, other than Maria, seems to think that winning a brand new Habanero Orange SUV is the big prize. Maria seems to know that the spiritual award is more important while her competitors border on outright murder to try and win the car. It’s a darkly comic concept and yet, there is even more than that at play in the margins of Stanleyville that make the movie so much more interesting.

If you’re wondering about the title, Stanleyville, keep wondering. I forgot to even search for a meaning to the title as I became enthralled with the odd tone and Susanne Wuest’s captivatingly odd performance. Perhaps when I see Stanleyville again I will find something out about the title but I mostly don’t care. I just want to dive back into this weird little world and watch Maria even closer to see if I can find an even more meaningful purpose that I imagine is there in the movie.

Stanleyville invites scrutiny and is also immune to it and I kind of love that. There is a confidently obtuse nature to the way Maxwell McCabe-Lokos directs Stanleyville. Much like Maria, he’s far more interested in observing than participating and it leaves us, in the audience, to either float along like Maria or become detectives eager to suss out some important detail. Some will find this approach frustrating but I found it exciting.

Stanleyville opens in limited theatrical release on April 22nd.