Fossil

Fossil, 2014, Brickwell Films. Directed by Alex Walker. Starring John Sackville, Edith Bukovics, Grant Masters and Carla Juri.

Fossil is the third film and first feature length piece by Alex Walker, who directed the enticing We Dreamed America, an exploration of the Country Music scene in Britain. As that film shows the consequences of two cultures intertwining, so Fossil shows the clash of ideals between the repressed and the carefree, the rich and the... less rich.  

Alex Walker wrote, directed, produced and edited the film and unfortunately it really shows. Any meaning to be gleaned from the artsy title and fartsy symbols is lost under half an hour of story dragged out over ninety minutes. Husband and wife Paul and Camilla are on their jollies in France when two drifters Richard and Julie break in and use their pool. Camilla invites them to stay, Paul objects, Richard flirts, Paul worries and it’s obvious from the first five minutes that someone will end up dead in Chekov’s pool by the end of act two. Massive plot threads are introduced and then promptly dropped, any action taken has no consequence and the film doesn’t really end, it just... stops.

The lack of a coherent story is not helped by the barely-there characters; Paul is writing a book on holiday which he won’t let anyone read (of course), his despicable wife seems to do things just to exasperate him and Richard and Julie are a Manic Pixie Dream Couple, and yes, they are as irritating as that sounds. The script is underwritten and badly needed someone else’s input. Instead, it’s a cliché wrapped in a trope and glaring mistakes shine through for the world to see. For example, the discussion I had after watching the film was not about marriage in a modern world or the strains of sharing a dark secret when you can’t trust your partner, but why in God’s name were they using aerial flip phones in a 2012 set film? And when a baffling prop choice is the most memorable part of your film, something has been lost along the way.

There was potential in Fossil. Shot like a French art house film from the 70s, the sundrenched Southern French landscape is drained of distinctive colours, the lingering shots of the gorgeous countryside given a distant, cold air as our four characters act out their melodrama under the relentless sunshine. Some shots are telling of Walker’s skill behind the camera and he seems to have a knack for finding beautiful, off-kilter angles which makes you wish you had a beard to stroke in deep thought as you wonder what it all means. But, a lousy script is a lousy script and not even the loveliest of scenery can save that. In the nicest possible way, Walker would do well to stick to directing and leave the script writing to someone else. I’d give this one a miss.