Amanda Kramer’s latest – By Design, which just screened at Sundance is an absurdist little gem that will no doubt confuse and confound countless unsuspecting folks that cross its path. The film stars Juliette Lewis as Camille, a woman going through a bit of a midlife crisis. Thanks to her age is invisible to most around her, and trapped in a thankless existence where she is lonely and put upon by all those around her – be it her two close “friends” Lisa and Irene, or her mother. One day after lunch with her “friends” Camille spots a chair that she simply falls in love with, however she is forced to come back the next day to purchase it. When she comes back the chair has been sold, but in a last minute act of absolute desperation – she wishes – with all of her heart, that she could again be something as loved and perfect as this chair.
After an interpretive dance sequence, Camille’s consciousness is swapped with the chair’s. Now that said, her body now has the personality of the chair and Camille is now trapped in this object. We soon discover the chair was meant as a gift for Olivier (Mamoudou Athie), a jazz keyboardist, by his ex-girlfriend who recently took everything and left him. The lonely musician, possibly feeling a presence inside of the chair, begins to have a mental/physical relationship with it in an odd metaphor for how some men simply wish to reduce women to an object they can own, control – property they can carry from place to place. This makes sense after we discover his previous girlfriend cheated on him and was a bit of a social butterfly, so completely uncontrollable to him. Through narration from Melanie Griffith we learn that Camille is happy to be the chair and once again to be wanted/desired, and “crushed” by Olivier’s love.
Strangely enough on the other side of this toxic relationship, Camille’s empty husk of a body while just laying there listless, is more popular than ever. This is because she just allows those around her who just trauma dumped on her before, to now simply project on her blank silent visage whatever they want. I mean this is a chair – so it’s fine I guess. Lewis spends the back half of this film dealing out a performance while mostly inanimate, allows those around her to fully expose their selfish and narcissistic ways. It’s kind of a surreal performance, but also is an act of defiance by the director who here pulls no punches. The film is a rich mesh of densely layered metaphors that transpire in a surreal fever dream of a vision that transpires in an 80s music video, pepperd with a deadpan style of delivery that brings to mind Jim Hosking (The Greasy Strangler).
While I came for the odd premise, I stayed for the performances and the depth of the script that still haunts me, as I tried to untangle the litany of interpretations possible long after I left the theater. By Design definitely feels like a sibling to The Substance, in that you have this actor who is a cinematic icon examining the reality of the experience of what aging is from a female point of view, when you’ve spent so much of your time being objectified. It’s both poignant and confrontational in how it approaches this, with a subtext that will definitely reward those that can peer below the surface for its deeper meaning. By Design is daring and profound in its indictment of how women are objectified and to be honest I am never going to look at a chair the same way again.
