Turn Me On

Turn-Me-On
Turn Me On

Marking the rough edges of the San Sebastián Film Festival this year, Turn Me On was even assumed to be lost among gem-like features, being termed as a “left-field gem.” This is the second film by Michael Tyburski, the first one titled The Sound of Silence (2019) earned praise at the Sundance festival. Should I give away what the doting wife is doing to her husband so that he turns away from other women? It is a very reminiscent concept, which was showcased by Kristen Stewart in the film Equals (2015). Tyburski seems to however wish to create a figure more like dark-sarcastic Yorgos Lanthimos. The film managed to wow audiences in Spain.

Walled off from the world, in turn, Me On, the fortress-like society is administered by a group known as Our Friends, who furnish benevolently monotonous flats, offer work, and provide mates and even children to all members. Everyone living within these walls is required to mechanically consume their “vitamin” every day to the point of losing all romantic and sexual feelings as well as erasures of any memories regarding their previous lives. Contact with other people is restricted, aggression has been removed and a sequence of bright traumatic grins is shown on the screens in order to keep audiences in a good mood. No one is alive here, people are constantly in a comfortable apathy that is almost contented. The residents often cheerfully ask co-workers and neighbors: “Are you content today?”

However, challenges lie ahead within this perfect aesthetic world as anger continues to join the list of negative emotions. A well-known British screen and stage actor Bel Powley plays the role of Joy, who is currently receiving medical treatment due to which she is required to miss her “vitamin” consumption for only a day. At the first moment, she seems to be unmotivated, however, she begins to be intrigued by the new strong emotions she feels because the chemical locked doors have been lifted inside. After covertly stopping her everyday pill, Joy persuades her chosen husband, Will (Nick Robinson) to follow her path as well.

In the beginning, he is in disbelief, exclaiming “Isn’t it better to be normal?” but he soon gives in, after which the inquisitive couple engages in sexual activities for the first time. Spoiler alert: they enjoy it. They then persuade their small circle of friends to forget drug-filled sexual repression and pornography for their exhilarating new pastime, which they cautiously name “sync-ing” because the standard vocabulary of the past no longer applies.

Tyburski and Bourassa, however, introduce these sexually charged narrative angles into the sketches and work mostly towards them awkwardly first. This leads to an outbreak of chilling violence, acute heartbreak and faceless homosexuality at which point all the anticipation has to be amorous and colorful. Joy is the most rebellious figure, and as expected, she becomes the target of enforcers representing the elite of Our Friends. The revelation of this in the late plot twist gives a sharp satirical angle as well adding depth to the community’s hypocritical class system.

Strictly pitched by Bourassa as a re-imagining of Adam and Eve for the modern day, Turn Me On is however clearly a much older moral tale than a modern political satire. That said, the stage setting cannot help but allude to and evoke images of many creepy New Age religious cults, not to speak of the Hollywood-like Holy Scientologists and the North Korean ominous dynasty-type controlled subservient order. In literature and cinema, one cannot escape thinking of dystopian classics like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, François Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451 (1966), an early George Lucas sci-fi thriller THX 1138 (1971) and The Truman Show (1998) among others.

Those, like Tyburksi and Bourassa, who are concerned with the questions of art in this film, seem to leave the rest of the story in admirably dry stone. Turner On will not likely encounter cult or audience adoration. More serious answers could have been provided especially if about the Our Friends organization; their context would have allowed pressing further to the intended depth of dark sources and developing a Handmaid’s Tale stylistics horror. Rather, the expectations of the viewers were twisted around taking a teasing turn. To such a real-world question, how many among the many would most likely exchange shielded insipidity for reckless excitement giving up sex for a comfortable life devoid of trauma and stress? More of us than we would perhaps wish to think.

In a very innovative but routine indie-drama way, Turn Me On seems to have approximately a low sphere of execution. But still, it has a clever development, a good cast of actors, and a perfectly lovely lead in Powley, who possesses the peculiar charm of a live-action era Vermeer: round-faced and brooding, yet captivating. The locations are very well done too; upstate New York is beautiful, and almost every shot of the old Kodak building in Rochester has been featured in its stylized elegance. Its massive concrete shapes are mostly captured in sweeping static ones and combined with luscious asides snipped of hills around Ontario Lake. Nate Heller’s playful compositional work, together with existing classical and choral works, adds some extra layers of mysterious mischievousness to Lanthimos lite.

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