Film #147 – Rubber

“No reason…”

Year Released: 2010
Director: Quentin Dupieux
Starring: Stephen Spinella, Jack Plotnick, Wings Hauser

As Rubber opens, a character, later named Sheriff Chad (Stephen Spinella), immediately breaks the fourth wall and points out all the things that happen in movies “for no reason.”  Moreso, he is explicit in explaining that this film that we are watching exists “for no reason” as well.  He is absolutely right.

We see a tall, slender man (Jack Plotnick) handing out binoculars to a group of people.  They all take their binoculars and look off into the distance, supposedly waiting for a ‘film’ to start.  Among them is an older, haggard man in a wheel chair (Wings Hauser).

Supposedly, the film they are watching is also the film we are watching.  A tire, submerged in the sand, comes to life.  It explores around itself, running over a plastic bottle, and then a live scorpion.  It seems to enjoy destruction.  When it comes to a beer bottle that it is unable to crush, it summons a tele-kinetic power that shatters the bottle.  Satisfied, it moves on to birds and rabbits, and eventually human beings.  Eventually, Sheriff Chad tries to battle and overcome this evil tire.

There is an obscure genre of film that attempts to satire or otherwise comment on common film pastiches, pointing out their inadequacies and other flaws.  These films frequently try to appear smarter than they actually are.  Rubber manages to portray itself in this style.  It’s poking fun at something, but it’s hard to tell what.  However, it commits a mortal sin by trying to tell the audience what it should be thinking by using the “audience” inside the film itself.  These people frequently comment on the action, but in such a way that is the polar opposite of how most watching the film would be.  It is tragically impossible to take what this tire is doing seriously, yet the people watching are shocked, awed, and yet still, strangely disconnected from everything that happens.

Eventually, this “audience” is deemed to be inadequate and the accountant attempts to take them out.  How I longed for a bite of that poisoned turkey so I could end the torture of watching this miserable experience.  Rubber insults your intelligence at every turn, trying to make a bizarre statement that is absolutely unintelligible.  Previous films have rejoiced in the fact that they are bad.  Rubber takes this too far.  It tries to justify its existence by somehow explaining that since everything happens “for no reason,” it doesn’t really matter in the long run.  The surrounding gestalt of pouring out random glasses of water, running over and breaking chairs, and emerging from trunks of cars for no good reason only solidify the fact that there truly is no reason this film needs to exist on screen.  It’s not kitschy, cute, or even avant-garde… it’s just insulting and infuriating, and not nearly as clever as it gives itself credit for.

I had a hard time justifying ever giving a score of 0.0 to a film that managed to play all the way through without setting something on fire.  I surmised that any film that successfully played from beginning to end deserved at least a fraction of a point.  Rubber has managed to convince me otherwise.  This is the worst film I have ever seen, even managing to surpass my previous worst, Freddie Got Fingered.

There is nothing redeeming about Rubber.  It is an insult to creativity, artistry, and everything that is interesting about experimental film making.  It is a film that never needed to be made, and it’s a shame that the production company did not have the foresight to see how big of a waste of film and resources it actually was.  It’s not even “so bad it’s good.”  It is a miserable, soul-sucking experience.  Now please pass the poisoned eclairs.

Score: 0.0

The Bad:
Every millisecond of it