X
- 2019
- R
- Greenwich Entertainment
- 1 h 21 m
- 2019
- R
- Greenwich Entertainment
- 1 h 21 m
Summary Reed (Christopher Abbott) is going on a business trip. He kisses his wife and infant son goodbye, but in lieu of a suitcase filled with clothes, he's packed a toothbrush and a murder kit. Everything is meticulously planned: check into a hotel and kill an unsuspecting victim. Only then will he rid himself of his devious impulses and conti...
Directed By: Nicolas Pesce
Written By: Ryû Murakami, Nicolas Pesce
- 2019
- R
- Greenwich Entertainment
- 1 h 21 m
- 2019
- R
- Greenwich Entertainment
- 1 h 21 m
Piercing
63
6.1
Where to Watch
Summary Reed (Christopher Abbott) is going on a business trip. He kisses his wife and infant son goodbye, but in lieu of a suitcase filled with clothes, he's packed a toothbrush and a murder kit. Everything is meticulously planned: check into a hotel and kill an unsuspecting victim. Only then will he rid himself of his devious impulses and conti...
Directed By: Nicolas Pesce
Written By: Ryû Murakami, Nicolas Pesce
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 23 Critic Reviews
63
65% Positive
15 Reviews
15 Reviews
30% Mixed
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
4% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 23 Critic Reviews
63
65% Positive
15 Reviews
15 Reviews
30% Mixed
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
4% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
What a deliciously demented and disturbing drama Nicolas Pesce's Piercing is, dripping with gore and laden with forbidden innuendo.
Darkly comic, disturbing, and fun, Piercing is a vulgar little thriller that is one you watch without the one you love.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 16 User Ratings
6.1
31% Positive
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
63% Mixed
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
6% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 16 User Ratings
6.1
31% Positive
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
63% Mixed
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
6% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
It was quite an interesting odd little film. Both Christopher Abbott and Wasikowska work well, although the film fails to be as provocative as it wants to be and how it imagines it to be.
Hardly memorable but considering its length and considering that frankly I wasn't bored, I think it's an interesting option.
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Βασισμένος στη νουβέλα του Ryū Murakami, ο Pesce μας συστήνει τον Reed ένας φυσιολογικό οικογενειάρχη που ετοιμάζει τις βαλίτσες του για ένα επαγγελματικό ταξίδι. Μόνο ο Reed δεν είναι καθόλου φυσιολογικός αλλά ένας ψυχοπαθής δολοφόνος, ο οποίος για να συνεχίσει να ζει την καθωσπρέπει ζωή, κάθε τόσο φροντίζει να το... ρίχνει έξω. Πηγαίνει σε ένα ξενοδοχείο, καλεί ένα call-girl και... το δολοφονεί με εξαιρετικά οργανωμένες κινήσεις. Για κακή του τύχη, αυτή τη φορά έρχεται η Jackie και τα σχέδια του πάνε περίπατο...
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The film is expertly crafted with jewel-toned cinematography, terrifically sleazy saxophone music, and performances by Abbott and Wasikowska that take turns seizing command. Still, like Reed’s solo rehearsals, Piercing has the feel of a blueprint, a talented man exercising his technical skills while waiting for a whack at the real deal.
Pesce is meticulously constructing the perfect murder only to systematically dismantle it for devilish fun. Maybe it’s a spoiler to call Piercing a comedy, but that’s exactly what it is.
It all works pretty well until the abrupt ending lets all the air out of the balloon. The dream-team pairing of Abbott and Wasikowska, two of the most interesting, subtle and risk-loving performers of their generation, is a huge compensation.
In the end Piercing seems more interested in aesthetic playfulness than getting the most out of these characters. Playing towards comedy helps some of the more freaky scenes go down, but that’s not a substitute for substance.
Piercing, the latest horror film by music video helmer turned feature horror writer/director Nicolas Pesce, is more frustrating than it is actually bad. Because Piercing, an adaptation of Ryu Murakami's novel of the same name, succeeds as a darkly comic provocation. I think. Sort of?
Great style, precious little substance
From Nicolas Pesce, writer and director of The Eyes of My Mother (2016), and based on the 1994 novel by Ryû Murakami, Piercing is a darkly comic psychosexual thriller. Partly a screwball comedy about a man's attempt to murder a prostitute, and his confusion and helplessness when he realises that she is far more disturbed than he is, the film dares the audience to figure out who is in charge at any given moment, and to ponder whether one (or both) of these characters would actually be quite happy to be the other's victim. Purposely made to look like a sleazy seventies exploitation flick, the film's sense of nostalgia drips off the screen, manifest in everything from the music borrowed from giallo films to the art-deco production design to the patently fake urban skyline to the lurid opening credits. However, as in The Eyes of My Mother, Pesce is unable to match his not-inconsiderable aesthetic acumen with any kind of emotionality. With no real sense of psychological verisimilitude or interiority, the two leads are blank canvases, and the film feels more like a sketch than a finished product.
Set in a non-specific city, Reed (Christopher Abbott) decides he is going to kill a prostitute in an attempt to purge himself of the thoughts he's been having of murdering his own baby, rehearsing everything from how long the chloroform will leave her unconscious to how best to carry her to the bathroom to begin dismemberment. However, when the time comes, things go down-hill fast, as his victim, Jackie (Mia Wasikowska), isn't entirely sane herself.
Perhaps the film's most salient theme is the issue of sexual consent, and how easily muddled it can become. It's a brave theme to take on in this post #MeToo era, with the film daring to ask whether consent should still be applicable if a person has consented to something harmful to their person, even up to the point of consensual homicide (look at the case of Armin Meiwes murder of Bernd Jürgen Brandes). Amidst the shifting sexual power-play between Reed and Jackie, at least twice, one of them believes they've been granted permission to murder the other.
One of the most obvious aspects of the film is its sense of humour, with many of the laughs coming from how anal Reed is. Once an unpredictable human element is introduced into his scheme, he finds himself unable to think on-the-fly. As his meticulously laid plans go up in smoke, he proves comically inept at handling any kind of interpersonal relationship. However, the fact that most of the comedy lands on his shoulders throws into relief the film's most egregious problem; although a good 90% of the narrative is told from his perspective, there's little to his personality. Granted, a couple of final-act flashbacks fill us in on why he is so obsessed with murder, but his character simply isn't capable of filling out a film.
The problem for me is that nothing lingers - and when some of the imagery is this extreme, it should definitely linger. I don't really think there's any depravity that Reed and Jackie could have inflicted on one another that would have provoked an emotional response, because I didn't know them, and therefore was unable to care about them.
Aesthetically, however, there's a great deal to praise here, with the sound design particularly inventive. During Reed's rehearsal of the murder, he goes through the entire act, from the initial drugging to the dismemberment. On screen, we see him pantomime the actions, but on the soundtrack, we hear the disturbing foley of everything - so as he's miming sawing, we hear a saw cut through flesh and bone. It's a brilliant way to place us firmly within his subjective experience. On a similar note, the music is absolutely top notch. Eschewing an original score, Pesce instead uses pre-existing tracks primarily from giallo classics.
Visually, the exteriors (of which there are very few) are obviously miniatures, with very little effort to make them look photorealistic. This sets an otherworldly tone right, as if the film is taking place in a slightly alternate reality, as the real and the fake mix together in Reed's confused mind. Interiors are blank, as if they are show-houses, not actually inhabited by a flesh and blood person - one shot, for example, shows a drink's cabinet where the bottles have no brands, just the name of the alcohol. Again, this sets the film's reality apart, as if everything is happening just outside our own world, or our own conception of the world.
Ultimately, however, Piercing is more interested in aesthetics than exploring psychology. The increasingly extreme goings-on are never anything more than a jokey end unto themselves. With Pesce focused on comedy beats, there are certainly a few laughs, but there's precious little substance.
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Utterly unlikeable characters (with Mia Wasikowska managing the previously impossible, namely looking deeply unattractive), dialogue more rotten than an infected Prince Albert; "I want you to wear my skin...", and a run time, at 82 minutes, a good 60 minutes longer than necessary! Piercing tried to be far too clever & stylish than it actually was; with silly flashbacks, even sillier "flesh crawling" insects and an ending I saw coming a mile away, so was bored by way before it eventually happened. I gave it half a star for Christopher Abbott's performance in the scenes in the hotel room before Wasikowska's entrance. Some films run for 2 or 3 hours yet fly by in a gripping, engaging speedway ride. Piercing just grated along like a ship on rocks, for what seemed like 2 hours. It was Tuesday night 'ready meal for one' dressed up as Saturday night 'steak dinner for two'! I really wanted it to be more than gross, gloopy, gimp gore. It wasn't!
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Production Company
BorderLine Films,
Borderline Presents,
Memento Films International,
Paradise City,
YL Pictures
Release Date Feb 1, 2019
Duration 1 h 21 m
Rating R
Tagline Practice Doesn't Always Make Perfect
Awards
Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival
• 2 Wins & 3 Nominations
Golden Trailer Awards
• 1 Win & 3 Nominations
Grimmfest
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
