Lyle (2014)

Running Time: 65 minutes

Release Date: July 12, 2014

Review by: Stacey

Usually if a movie mirrors too much of an earlier film and isn't a remake, we're gonna have some problems.  That would be said about director Stewart Thorndike's Lyle if it wasn't so damn good.  What we got was a modernized take on Rosemary's Baby without it feeling like a total rip-off.

 

Pregnant Leah (Gaby Hoffman) and June (Ingrid Jungermann) find the perfect New York apartment to raise their toddler, Lyle.  While June is busy working on her budding music career, Leah stays at home to care for Lyle and set up their home, when tragedy strikes and the toddler dies.  The story fast fowards 7 months to a still-grieving Leah who is almost ready to give birth.  June is now successful in her career and ready to move past the death, but Leah can't let go and soon starts to suspect that their kooky landlord, Karen (Rebecca Street), might have sinister connections with Lyle's death.

 

Lyle definitely takes the less is more route in many aspects.  From the short run time (65 minutes) to the fairly tight set locations (scenes were almost always shot in the apartment),  they took that low budget status seriously.  Despite a very minimal cast, everyone did their part to hold the film together nicely.  Well, Michael Che (The Daily Show, Saturday Night Live) might have been the exception with his flat performance.  Gaby Hoffman was the show stealer playing a character that had to be very emotional throughout the majority of the film.  At times, she was almost TOO convincing with her grief, that it came off like overacting.

 

There were some unusual shots and camera angles coupled with an eerie score that gave the film an almost dreary vibe (a toddler dying is definitely dreary enough on its own).  The story itself didn't bring anything new to the table but the fun of Lyle is figuring out if Leah's grief turned her crazy or if nefarious shit really is afoot.  That you'll just have to wait until the end to see.

The film's shorter than normal run-time for a feature length probably didn't do any favors to help the viewer understand what exactly was going on.  While the first half of the film took its time setting things up, the last half happened so quick that you were left with a pretty vague idea of what happened, which I've noticed a lot of low/micro budget films tend to do.  I feel like a good 15-20 more minutes would have been enough to tell the whole story successfully.

If you've got a short attention span and dig Rosemary's Baby-esque slow burns, Lyle is one you want to watch.

4/5 shitty neighbors

Check out the trailer!