Social tensions spiral towards disaster before a cryptic rug-pull in this strange
comedy gem
Generally speaking, it’s a bit dismaying to find out that a movie is a movie within a movie, or that it’s somehow about itself, or a commentary on itself. The rug-pull isn’t enjoyable when the rug never felt very interesting or secure in the first place. But the meta gets better in Lawrence Michael Levine’s dizzying but gripping comedy Black Bear, which is a recurring nightmare – or rather, an entertainment in two acts about the messy business of making a personal film based on actual events. Is the movie being shot in the second act inspired by the events in the first? Or is the first act a film (or a dream, or a reverie) inspired by what happened in the second?
Related: Christopher Abbott on life after Girls: ‘There’s something romantic about making movies’