Another Hole in the Head Film Festival Coverage
The Wheel of Heaven review.
There are strange movies…and then there is The Wheel of Heaven. Perhaps the only movie to ever break the fourth wall to try and figure out what we are looking at.
Festival movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
The Wheel of Heaven
Directed by Joe Badon
Written by Joe Badon and Jason Kruppa
Starring Kali Russell, Vincent Stalba, Jeff Pearson, Cami Roebuck, Nadia Eiler, Brian Plaideau, Miles Hendler and Tiffany Christy
The Wheel of Heaven Review
Where do we begin with The Wheel of Heaven? The movie itself begins in a place we’ve never seen before. An interview with director Joe Badon on the No Film School podcast. It later cuts to a conversation between Badon and lead actress Kali Russell. She loves the wild ideas on the page but has a very specific question: What is this movie about? Her question is a fare one. We’re two segments into the story and it’s all been fourth wall breaking and self-analysis. The open-endedness of the answer the movie provides is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. On one hand…boundless creativity with no restrictions. On the other, if they’re going to ask what the meaning of something is…you kind of expect an answer.
The Wheel of Heaven isn’t big on answers. Sure, there are reasons for things. There are always reasons for things. Even the wildest moments in The Wheel of Heaven have a reason for being there. What is it about? I’m not sure that Kali Russell ever gets her answer. There is a narrative ending that makes enough sense to be a tidy finish for Russell’s character. The bigger question, however, is something you can keep questioning after the credits roll.
I’d say that we’ve never seen anything like The Wheel of Heaven before but that wouldn’t be exactly true. Last year’s HeBGB TV shared many similar impulses. It didn’t continuously break the fourth wall to show arguments about sex scenes or questioning what is happening…but it was a similar cavalcade of loosely connected ideas. Here too, we see a television station that serves us our content in the narrative. A public access channel is the home to the television show The Wheel of Heaven. Or, perhaps, it’s unrelated chapters in a choose your own adventure novel. Like I said…not big on answers.
Before we get to The Wheel of Heaven, we see a children’s show on the public access station. Uncle Bobo is a creepy show host that we later learn some crazy things about. We learn those things in candid interview with the actor who plays Uncle Bobo within the world of the public access show. Not to be confused with interviews with the actor who plays our lead in the movie. It can be confusing…but it is fun.
The movie The Wheel of Heaven jumps genres seemingly at random. The constant is Russell’s character. I’m going to avoid naming the character because there isn’t just one. She plays several characters within the world of the show, the movie and outside the movie. Characters in search of a purpose. In search of meaning. They (and she) find what they’re looking for which allows the film to find a natural conclusion. It’s about as normal as the movie ever gets.
Dinosaur action figures face off with explosions…commercials for a skateboard attorney…audio of Badon directing over scenes. Recapping the segments would be a complete waste of time. It’s an unhinged collection of ideas. We even cut to a table read at one point. Narratives don’t get much looser than this.
Does it add up to something good? Sometimes. It can be a headache. It can also be very enjoyable. The impulse to default to behind-the-scenes discussions is a fascinating one. They’re interesting…but they also, literally, pull you out of the story. Some will love it. Others will find it repetitive. For what it’s worth…I enjoyed the additional layer of storytelling that it provides. The Wheel of Heaven succeeds by jumping through these layers like a person with an attention deficit disorder holding the remote control. The good news is that it’s never boring. The problem is that you aren’t catching enough meaning to answer your questions.
Scare Value
The design of The Wheel of Heaven is fascinating. The result of its completely unique storytelling is a movie that is never boring. Unfortunately, from a narrative standpoint, when you make a search for meaning a focal point of your story…you’re going to want to have meaning. Mostly we’re left to feel much like the story’s lead actress. Impressed by the how of it…confused by the why.
