By George & Josh Bate
There’s a fleeting moment in Ponderosa that pulls the audience away from a weirdly disconcerting and disconcertingly weird narrative and succinctly captures the bewilderment that characterizes life nowadays. Alexis Bledel and Jack Dylan Grazer’s characters are journeying in a car when Bledel mentions that their surroundings look different than they did when she was a child. After a brief pause, Bledel corrects herself by commenting that, in actuality, their surroundings look the same as they did when she was a child, but they feel different now. The overwhelming, almost suffocating feeling that things will never change and yet everything appears to be on the precipice of monumental change lies at the center of Rob Rice’s unusual, unsettling, and unforgettable horror comedy.
Making its world premiere at this year’s Tribeca Festival, Ponderosa follows Zeke (Jack Dylan Grazer), a young man who enjoys a quiet suburban life with his mother, Sandra (Alexis Bledel). As the buffet where Sandra works nears closure, wealthy regular George (Bill Camp) hires Zeke to work on a local construction project, the first step in his plan to create a father-son bond with Zeke. What ensues is an understated clash of generations as Zeke remains resolute against the strange advances of a man who is obsessed with becoming his father.
In his second feature, Rob Rice finds the horror in the humor and the relevant in the weird. Ponderosa unfolds with a Yorgos Lanthimos-coded take on reality. Like The Lobster or The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Rice’s film exists in a world that looks and feels like our own but is just slightly off, namely due to the uncanny stoicism and passivity of its characters. As things get increasingly strange for Grazer’s Zeke, he remains unusually unmoved, a reflection of the younger generation’s apathy toward older generations’ insistence on asserting depraved ways of living as the norm.
The premise that drives Ponderosa forward, much like the broader film itself, elicits laughs and disconcertment in equal measure. The idea of a grown man vehemently wishing to become the father of a young man, only to be continually rebuffed by his advances, may seem like the set-up for an uproarious comedy, but Rice’s film proves far more nuanced.
Bill Camp’s George is a member of a group of men who are determined to bring what they see as tenets of the American 20th century into the 21st century. George and his evangelist overlords present disturbing, even depraved ways of living as not only natural but necessary, a description that will eerily resonate with anyone remotely familiar with the kinds of real-life right-wing thought leaders that gain a disturbing amount of traffic online.
And, much like these real-life right-wing thought leaders, George and his overlords are unintentionally hilarious in the seriousness with which they approach trying to convince young men to be their sons. That George is shocked by Zeke’s continual rebuffs makes the humiliation and humor of these evangelists all the more potent.
Rice fascinatingly interrogates the ways in which generations clash and relate to one another in his film. With its three core characters, the filmmaker captures three generations, each with distinct relations to the others and perspectives on the world. While George is anxiety personified and feels such urgency to achieve his goal (despite the fact that literally every decision he makes takes him further away from achieving his goal), Alexis Bledel’s Sandra harbors a quiet guilt, at one point profoundly commenting that she feels like her generation ate all the icing off the cake. Capturing Zeke’s generation in a nutshell, Grazer’s character replies, “I never really liked icing anyway.”
While Rice crafts a truly original and simultaneously timely and timeless story, his filmmaking will certainly test the patience of some audiences. Ponderosa is not for viewers who crave structured narratives, brisk pacing, and dazzling visuals. Instead, the film is far more likely to resonate with those who wish to experience something novel and thought-provoking. A movie that has something to say but doesn’t spell everything out for you. A movie that makes you uncomfortable, and even scares you at times, but ultimately lingers in the mind far after the credits roll.
VERDICT: 7.5/10
Making its world premiere at this year’s Tribeca Festival, Ponderosa is an unusual, unsettling, and unforgettable horror comedy that deftly and hilariously captures the nightmare that is living in 21st century America. Filmmaker Rob Rice’s second feature unfolds with a Yorgos Lanthimos-coded take on reality, with a protagonist that mirrors the stoicism and passivity of characters from The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. The premise that drives Ponderosa forward, much like the broader film itself, elicits laughs and disconcertment in equal measure. The idea of a grown man vehemently wishing to become the father of a young man, only to be continually rebuffed by his advances, may seem like the set-up for an uproarious comedy, but Rice’s film proves far more nuanced. Over the course of a bizarre and at times quite hilarious story, Ponderosa holds a mirror up to the oblivious and ridiculous right-wing thought leaders that assert their depraved way of living as the norm and poignantly comments on differing worldviews across generations. Bill Camp is anxiety personified as the bizarre man urgently trying to make a young man his son, while Jack Dylan Grazer excels in trading the eccentricity of his characters in the It and Shazam! franchises are known for with a more understated yet powerful performance light on dialogue. Ponderosa may test the patience of some audiences and can’t be characterized as a particularly enjoyable movie, but it is certainly novel and thought-provoking and has something to say that will linger in the mind longer after the credits roll.
