Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Horse Girl’ on Netflix, in Which Alison Brie Steers Us From Twee Indie to Surreal Sci-fi

Horse Girl is the product of Netflix’s recent deal with producers/sometime directors Jay and Mark Duplass, who, during the last decade-and-a-half, transformed their mumblecore empire into a successful enterprise of less-navel-gazing indie movies. With offbeat tones and character-centric stories, their work is perfect for Netflix — and the intimacy of home is ideal for appreciating thoughtful performances like Alison Brie’s in this peculiar film.

HORSE GIRL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Sarah (Brie) is a woman who wears big underwear. You know the type — the stereotype — a little mousy, sweet, a tad lonely, maybe likes a TV show a little too much. She works in an arts-and-crafts store, where she wears a smock and cuts fabric and sorts beads. After work, she stops by the horse corral to see Willow, her former horse. Why former? We don’t know, but she seems to be wearing out her welcome with the owners and riders, to whom she gives unsolicited advice. But she’s so nice, and clearly well-intentioned, you can’t be firm. And you worry she might be fragile.

Joan (Molly Shannon), a close friend at work, is motherly and caring, a true friend. Sarah needs it; she frequently tends to her mother’s grave. Her roommate Nikki (Debby Ryan) sets her up with Darren (John Reynolds), a charmingly nervous sort, and they hit it off. She goes for a walk with Heather (Meredith Hagner), who appears to have some sort of disability, and we see flashes of a past horse accident. Sarah is patient and caring, and we like her, and feel sad when she overemphasizes how she and Willow have the same birthday, and also when she stays home on her birthday for a lonesome viewing of her favorite supernatural TV show Purgatory, and also also when she starts to sleepwalk and have surreal dreams and lose time and believe she’s a clone and/or alien abductee.

So all is not well with Sarah. She looks alarmingly like her grandmother, who was mentally ill. She’s frustrated waiting for the results of her mail-in DNA test. She gets frequent nosebleeds and has strange bruises on her thighs and abdomen. People from her dreams show up in her peripheral vision, and eventually, right smack in front of her. Light banter about “gradient yarn” with Joan becomes worrisome convos about Sarah’s psychological well-being. Reality becomes delusion becomes an inability to distinguish the two, and her experiences seem to be directed by Stanley Kubrick or Jonathan Glazer or David Lynch. This is not a good thing.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Horse Girl exists somewhere in the median between northbound indie quirk (Duplass joints Cyrus and The Skeleton Twins courted similar vibes) and southbound insanity (I caught whiffs of 2001, Under the Skin and Twin Peaks in this, believe it or not).

Performance Worth Watching: Brie, who co-writes with director Jeff Baena, based the story on her family history of mental illness, so it’s no surprise to see her go deep into this role. Her characterization is expressive and deep, flashy only when necessary, stirring up sympathy and empathy even when the material throws her — and us — neck-deep into weirdness.

Memorable Dialogue: “I love water,” Darren says emphatically, proving that he may be the perfect man for Sarah.

Sex and Skin: Full frontal Brie; some squishiness occurring just out of frame.

Our Take: Remember what Mr. Rogers always said: TRUE CLOSURE IS A FALLACY AND TO YEARN FOR IT IS TO PUMMEL HAPPINESS WITH A BIG, HEAVY STICK. Horse Girl doesn’t hold your hand and explain everything, for better or for worse, mostly for worse, but the 90 minutes preceding the last 10 are so good, you’ll forgive Baena and Brie’s conceptual stumbles. The more you’ve come to grips with life’s omnipresent uncertainties, the more palatable the film will be. Fun!

The movie’s central conceit is whether we should believe our own eyes and, correspondingly, Sarah’s. The character is so earnest, we tend to believe her when she says her bizarre visions and conspiracy theories are real. The film never truly makes transparent the “rules” of its reality, which translates to the question of its genre: Is it a character drama based on our reality, or does it indulge a third-act bait-and-switch to sci-fi? Yes, no, maybe so, ask not lest ye know the horrors of the truth, this is the water, this is the well, drink full and descend, the horse is the white of the eyes and dark within, and all that.

I foresee some questioning whether Horse Girl does proper justice to its gravely serious subject matter — mental illness — by exploiting Sarah’s situation for a fanciful and strange cinematic endeavor. Credit Brie for a tour-de-force in every sense of the cliche; credit the film for daring to push us into uncomfortable directions. It’s 2020. Do we need another headtrip puzzle movie? Or do we need a deliberately mindful depiction of mental illness? Horse Girl is pretty damn good, but its inability to answer that is its greatest failing.

Our Call: STREAM IT. And stream it for Brie. Her commitment to this beleaguered Horse Girl is a thing to behold.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Horse Girl on Netflix