On May 1, the comedy thriller «Borderline», in which Ray Nicholson plays an obsessive fan of pop star Sofia, played by Samara Weaving, was released in cinemas. As the actress noted, her image was inspired by Madonna and Britney Spears. The official Ukrainian poster features the inscription «From the creators “Cocaine Bear” and producers “Barbie” and “Saltburn”», and before watching it, one could only guess what level of screen madness awaited the audience. Well, that’s what we’re going to talk about in the review below.
Pluses:
some actors, in particular Ray Nicholson, Alba Baptista and Jimmy Fales, are quite good in the frame; there is something to laugh at; you can feel the creators' attempt to make a stylish movie;
Minuses:
an extreme level of absurdity that doesn't work as it should; the intonation disorder does not allow the creators to present a coherent meaningful story and spoils the impression; Samara Weaving's restraint seemed out of place;
«Borderline»
Genre comedy thriller
Director Jimmy Worden
Starring Samara Weaving, Ray Nicholson, Jimmy Fales, Eric Dane, Alba Baptista, Billy Magnussen, Patrick Cox
Premiere movie theaters
Year of release 2025
Website IMDb
Los Angeles, the 90s. Paul Dewerson, perhaps her most ardent fan, visits the home of the mega-popular singer Sophia. But on the threshold of the luxurious home, he meets not the object of his adoration, but the stern bodyguard Bell. The latter politely tries to drive the intruder away, but in vain. Six months later, Sofia finds out that Paul has escaped from the psychiatric hospital where he was admitted after his previous visit. The next one doesn’t take long (in fact, it does), only this time the crazy stalker has acquired accomplices, and now he is determined to finally get married to his «beloved».
In 1996, a certain Robert Dewey Hoskins was sentenced to 10 years in prison for for stalking Madonna and threatening the star. According to her bodyguard, the man claimed he would slit the singer’s throat if she didn’t become his wife. After his release from prison and later from a California psychiatric hospital, in July 2011, Hoskins was arrested again and sent to another medical facility in Los Angeles. The following year, he managed to escape, but eventually law enforcement officers detained the mentally ill man.
Obviously, when writing the script, Jimmy Worden was inspired by these real-life events, and the world-famous blonde played the lead role, following the example of Paul W.S. Anderson’s colleague, took his wife Samara Weaving. The latter has already been called «the scream queen»; I wonder what she thinks about this, for example, Mia Goth.
After watching Worden’s film, for whom this was his directorial debut (and another blonde beauty, Margot Robbie, is listed as an executive producer), you run the risk of asking yourself something like this: «what the hell was that? It’s clear that Worden and everyone involved were trying to combine a black comedy about obsession with a home invasion thriller, but in reality they ended up with something very vague and questionable.
The problem is that you start to get bored around the 15th minute, to outrage somewhere around the equator of the running time, and to spit towards the end, when the level of absurdity reaches its peak. The reaction to the film is due to the fact that its creators have not yet decided what to bet on and how to competently mold different genre elements into something coherent.
A rather exciting opening scene and Ray Nicholson’s subsequent goofing around while the opening credits roll set the stage for some silly, but fun screen madness. However, from there on out, we are offered sheer boredom, as the introduction to the characters drags on. Their completely meaningless dialogues become increasingly annoying, and attempts at humor, such as the appearance of a policeman who dreams of becoming a musical star, do not save the overall dull performance.
To give you an idea, the characters of Weaving and Nicholson meet face-to-face at about minute 40. That is, the creators are scattered on some unnecessary storylines, such as Bell’s family, so most of what has happened so far can be safely skipped. And this meeting itself is hardly something really exciting.
The transfer of events to the 90s does not look very reasonable either, because this factor has virtually no impact on anything. Unless Worden wanted to refer to the resonant events of those times, which also challenged established gender roles.
In one of the scenes, we will see a puzzle dedicated to the current era of the comedy «Junior» (1994). We also meet Sophia’s friend, professional basketball player Rhodes — a kind of allusion to Dennis Rodman, who, by the way, had a brief affair with Madonna in the same year, 1994. In «Junior», if you recall, Schwarzenegger had to get pregnant, and here we have a local NBA star walking around in a wedding dress, just like Rodman did at the presentation of his autobiography in 1996.
It is impossible not to notice Worden’s attempt to play with style: shades of red flash here and there in the frame, signaling danger or even bloody consequences; Paul’s reflection in a broken mirror looks telling; hits from a long gone era are constantly played — the joint performance of Celine Dion’s hit «It’s All Coming Back to Me Now» by Samara Weaving and Alba Baptista is particularly memorable. It’s a shame that none of this makes the shaky script any stronger, or the movie — any more interesting.
Ray Nicholson has been having a good time, but after the recent «Novocaine» risks becoming a hostage to one image. Samara Weaving, on the other hand, is characterized by stable restraint, which makes us indifferent to her character. Alba Baptista and Jimmy Fales, on the other hand, organically fit into the narrative, but this has little effect.
Clearly, all of this is a clear provocation from Worden, which does not negate the fact that the ambitious debutant is trying to pass his movie off as something more witty, inventive and stylish than it really is.
Behind all the close-ups of Ray Nicholson’s grimaces, the unbearable antics of Paul’s drugged-up accomplice, and the black humor (to be fair, some jokes, though absurd, are really funny), there is a tone and content disorder. That’s probably why at the end credits, like Paul Dewerson, you can’t decide whether to laugh out loud or cry your eyes out.
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