Disney World is a psycho-sexual nightmare landscape in this uneasy independent drama. Its grand fountains are so many ejaculations. The Snow White mine car ride plunges satisfyingly into a dark cave full fear and wonder. Pretty girls eat bananas and play with phallic pool floats. The girls in Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty costumes are playthings for rich men. There’s even a haggard witch who’s trolling for sex. And let’s just mention the Siemens corporation logo—I’ve been smirking at that one in real life for years—prominent in a few pivotal scenes.
I guess the teacup ride is innocent, but everything else within the gates is pure smut to this movie’s troubled husband and father on a fateful family vacation. He falls apart piece by piece, starting with the opening scene in which he’s fired from his job by phone in his hotel room that overlooks the theme park wonderland. From there, reality gets iffy. The tension between him and his wife seems real. His whiny son and daughter seem real. The two dangerously young-looking French girls, all giggles and short shorts, with whom he develops an obsession seem real (even if some scenes involving them might not be). Some of the embarrassing things he does while drunk seem real, too.
The jury is out on everything else though, from the cat flu to the Epcot kidnapping to the robot to the scratch-your-head ending. First time writer/director Randy Moore thoughtfully leaves those matters unresolved so that you have something to talk about afterward besides the film’s extraordinary behind-the-scenes story in which the makers subverted one of the richest, most image-conscious corporate behemoths on Earth. They shot their downer drama in secret at Disney World without permission. All they had were some inconspicuous digital cameras and a cast and crew who blended in with the tourists (the steep admission price to the park must have been half the budget!). Crazy plan. Even better, they got away with it.
How the movie didn’t get sued out of existence, I’m not sure, except that maybe Disney figured that a small, black-and-white art film that most people will hate wasn’t worth the trouble or the publicity.
The lion couldn’t be bothered to swat the fly. Did the fly beat the lion or did the lion simply allow the fly to live? That’s one more question that this movie drops onto your lap.