Splitsider

“Welcome to the Jeffers Corporation. The largest and friendliest and most profitable corporation in the history of mankind.”

The first joke in Visioneers is visual: a logo of buildings shaped like a raised middle finger. On the surface it’s juvenile. That surface is promptly removed, along with other expectations foisted by flimsy Netflix descriptors like “quirky” and “understated.” In the world of the film, the gesture has none of the connotation it does in our world. Instead, giving someone the bird is a salutation. That’s how Visioneers works. The film trades in expectations, presenting the familiar without accepting preexisting definitions.

It’s not an easy film to describe since it compares better to George Saunders or David Foster Wallace than any recent movie, especially one starring Zach Galifianakis. All these worlds are moderated by people and places and objects we know, but meanings are recast and symbols adjusted. The change can be subtle. In Visioneers, triumph takes the form of a successful pole vault or a smiley face on a sticky note. Conversely, the word “chaos” is, for 94 minutes, unflinchingly pronounced “chay-os,” and an entire character is never seen nor heard, which must have been difficult to explain to the financiers.

When such moments are stitched into the molten pacing and perfect performances of the whole, they form a unique texture. If I sound oblique it’s because Visioneers is supremely odd. The film is divisive; it needs to be. It took months to convince a group of friends to watch the movie. I didn’t know how to explain it then and I still don’t now. The responses to that viewing were split. Some, like me, loved it. Other’s didn't. All were confused. READ MORE