Charlie Casanova (2012)

Charlie Casanova (2012) A twisted journey into the hate-filled fantasies of a sociopath. Produced on an almost nonexistent budget, using the talents of volunteered professionals, director Terry McMahon creates a bludgeoning Irish drama about a man deciding the fate of his life with a deck of cards. Emmett Scanlan (from Channel 4’s Hollyoaks) plays the lead role of psychotically deranged Charlie, who hits a woman with his car early on in the film, and uses a deck of cards to decide how he will deal with the situation. This leads Charlie to burn the car, and pretend that it was stolen, then convince his small group of friends to join him in his new found “freedom”, by making choices through chance. Predictably, most of his friends make minor life decisions, like whether or not to shave off their moustache, or give up peanut butter. But, for some, the process reveals some intimately dark secrets, as well as causing some intense problems within their personal relationships. Charlie, meanwhile, continues his rampage of acting on impulse, and indulging his own personal fantasies, such as sleeping with his best friend’s wife, and starting a one-man crusade against the working class, for which Charlie holds a great hatred. As the film enters the third act, all of the previous decisions lead most of the characters into dark fates, and Charlie’s grasp on reality becomes dangerously unstable. Initially, the story seems like a mid-life crisis film, similar to Kevin Spacey’s character in American Beauty (1999). However, as the film develops, and Charlie’s attention becomes more violently focused upon these “tracksuit wearing” members of the lower classes, it becomes a cautionary tale of the ruling class, and how one man’s insecurity about his masculinity and power, can lead to chaos. McMahon commented about the nature of a character like Charlie, “I’d seen one too many boozed-up, egomaniacs combine cocaine with Viagra to make themselves appear manly. Then, in the disappointing post-sex adrenaline, they’d look for violence with somebody or some group they feared in order to re-engage with the same futile need to appear masculine.” This idea of impotency and powerlessness permeates the story, as we see other characters struggle with their own personal issues. Throughout the film, Charlie uses his extensive vocabulary to detail how much he hates people from a working background, orating about the scrounging nature of those on benefits, the baby-popping culture, and how the middle and upper classes support them. Whilst his preachy rants are entertaining at first, they soon reveal his ignorant hate and instability, becoming inconsistent and contradictory. From a viewer’s perspective, the film’s longwinded script and repetitive themes become heavy handed, and the film looses focus whilst trying to make an array of social and political comments and maintain a gripping story. Ignoring its production values, and the overly politicised nature of the script, there is some very daring cinema at play here. Charlie is an extremely engaging character, forming the role of a middle-class monster, whose sermons attempting to justify his actions make him seem like a false prophet-cum-social warrior. McMahon interplays varying themes, all of which needed to have been explored more, but which engage you on an intellectual level, and will leave you questioning what you saw long after you have stopped watching.