Fifteen minutes into The Debut I suddenly had a moment of realisation. I get it. She’s in a coma and this is all a dream. Living out an alternative fantasy life away from the humdrum. Something like The Singing Detective maybe, Obviously I was completely wrong. Or am I? You’ll have to see the film, directed and written by Jesse Eisenberg to Find out.
Julianne Moore is magnificent as buttoned up suburban housewife Mona, who decides to audition for the local production of a musical called Nosy Neighbours. Except that she is completely lacking in skill, confidence and theatrical oomph. She’s a mousy housewife offstage and just as mousy onstage. She doesn’t even get to the end of her audition piece before director Jerry (Paul Giammati) decides he’s had enough.
And then there’s the twist. The actor they cast as Miss Danielle (Bernadette Peters) drops out and Mona gets the call. She was second best, but only because nobody else applied. But can she pull off the role of a lifetime?
Eisenberg’s movie is a mix of Woody Allen/Bullets Over Broadway and Fame, with Giamatti playing a tyrannical Bob Fosse-type figure. I started to wonder if it was all a dream when the rest of the cast and crew started to treat Mona as the leading lady, bending to her every whim, when actually she only has a bit part as the building superintendent.
At the BFI London Film Festival screening, Jesse Eisenberg cited Richard Ayoade as an influence and, unlike Eisenberg’s straighter last directorial outing, A Real Pain, this has surreal Ayoadean flourishes. Mona, for example, goes full method to get into the role of superintendent, swapping her stage tools for a real janitor’s toolbelt, having left her family and moved into a scuzzy apartment block. Needless to say it goes pear-shaped when she tries to do some electrical repairs in the building…
If the tone is uneven at times Moore is brilliant throughout, evolving from passive to diva. Jerry might seem scary but he is also helpful. At one point encouraging her during some role play to demand the rent from him and prompting a foulmouthed tirade that had the entire full house bellowing with laughter in a way I’ve rarely ever seen in the cinema.
Towards the end things really spin out of control. Are we watching fantasy or reality? Jesse Eisenberg even has a cameo as a resident with a backed up toilet. In fact Eisenberg could have called the movie Backed Up. It’s something of a theme, with Mona seen fixing toilets and her husband seen sitting on one. Maybe the film is about Mona’s whole life being backed up and this big break unblocks the blockage at last. The Debut opens in the UK in January. Let’s hope it is flushed with success.
Picture: A24
