Stars: 5/5
Conspiracy theories, horses, Matthew Gray Gubler–Sundance Film Festival movie “Horse Girl” has it all, and now that it’s on Netflix, everyone can dive into its genius madness.
The movie jumps right in with the horse girl, Sarah (Alison Brie), and follows her while she goes through a typical day. Sarah works at a craft store and really only has a few people in her life, including her co-worker Joan (Molly Shannon) and her roommate Nikki (Debby Ryan).
Of course she also has her beloved horse Willow, who she sold but still goes out to the stable to see. She also has Darren Colt (Matthew Gray Gubler), who is the star of her favorite supernatural TV show Purgatory.
Sarah has many things in her life she has to cope with, like the history of mental illness in her family with her grandmother having schizophrenia and her mother recently passing away due to suffering from extreme depression.
Like many people she finds comfort in the things she enjoys and often finds herself becoming so indulged in her own little world that she has intense fantasies. As someone who loves cinema and Matthew Gray Gubler, especially in “Criminal Minds,” I also find myself using shows to distract from my reality and escape from everyday problems.
The only problem is that Sarah begins to struggle to know what’s real and what’s fake.
She begins to act strangely and does abnormal things way beyond sleep walking at night. Eventually we learn that Sarah’s grandmother believed in the paranormal and people thought she was crazy, but Sarah also believes in aliens and that she has been abducted and possibly is a clone of her grandmother.
Yes, you read that correctly.
To try to get her out of her comfort zone and to celebrate her birthday, Nikki invites her boyfriend and his roommate over to have a get together. Not only is the roommate (played by John Paul Reynolds) named Darren like her favorite TV show character, but he’s super nice and really likes her.
Well, the relationship doesn’t last long when on their first date Sarah shares her paranormal beliefs in the most shocking ways possible. This is only one example in the film of how Sarah begins to unravel, and her theories begin to really drag her out of reality.
Her family having a history of mental illness makes Sarah reluctant to tell people about what she believes is happening to her, and once she does, she loses trust in them because they don’t react the way she wants them to.
Of course they react the way anyone would if someone told them they thought they were abducted by aliens. I would be crazy too if I experienced the things Sarah did, and she believes it’s real so much that it’s not crazy to her.
This film is great at making the viewer feel the same uneasiness and awkwardness as the characters do. We also begin to understand Sarah’s point of view more as the film progresses, with her sanity lessening, making the audience question what is real and what is all in her head.
There are moments where Sarah sees and experiences abnormal things, pertaining to what she believes to be time loss and other things as an effect of her alien abduction. I felt like I was going crazy myself watching this film.
By the end of the film Sarah is completely detached from reality, and we see a huge montage of events that could either be real, meaning she was telling the truth the whole time, or that were all in her imagination. You could definitely argue both, and I think what’s great about this film is that it’s left up to the audience’s interpretation while still providing a good surprising ending.
I had high expectations because the trailer looked really good, and I definitely wasn’t disappointed. This was the most insane movie I’ve seen in a while that actually shocked me and kept me interested the whole time.
The cinematography and score of this movie is breathtaking and fits the ambiance of the film perfectly. The imagery, symbolism and foreshadowing were incredible as well, not to mention that the dialogue of every scene was improvised which is incredible and makes me appreciate them even more.
The movie highlights what it’s like to be confused and scared while dealing with having a mental illness in a real way. Alison Brie co-wrote and produced this film and shared how she herself shared the same fear as her character with her grandmother suffering with mental illness and being scared that it was in her bloodline.
Sarah might be a clone, might have been abducted, or she might have just been crazy and scared to admit it. Either way the story is beautifully done and a great watch. If you love conspiracy theories and movies that send you spiraling until the very end, then this movie is definitely for you.