Bunny Lake is Missing - 1965

It may have been exactly a week ago I got the random thought to see what else Keir Dullea is in besides 2001 A Space Odyssey. I did some quick research and found this 60's psychological thriller directed by Otto Preminger and for sure I was in for a good time.

Keir Dullea stars in the bizarrely named Bunny Lake is missing. Guys, can you give her a different last name so it doesn't sound like an actual lake is gone, instead of a human girl? Maybe that's the point. Maybe, cause there are so many different angles and ideas here that we never really land on anything specific, and that's a clue to my final rating I give away in the beginning of this review. I don't care dawg.

Keir Dullea is Steven Lake, and his sister Ann Lake goes to pick up her daughter Bunny Lake from elementary school one day. She is new to town, having just moved here to get help from Steven. Ann gets to the school and Bunny is nowhere to be found. No record of Bunny exists. Steven arrives around the same time as the police and others are coming in because of the disturbance. There is further complication as records about Bunny are screwy, no one saw her on the trip, and the mothers stuff contains no items belonging to Bunny. The idea is that we are supposed to, as an audience, have an unreliable narrator, and wonder which person is deceiving us.

So. Do I jump to the "problem" with all this? I guess so. Spoilers. Number one, the MUSIC?! What the living fuck is this corny, zany music everywhere in the film? It undercuts every dark turn and the greater atmosphere. It takes away from scenes in measurable ways. Second, the acting. Keir Dullea is not especially good in this, and his role is so huge and important in the end especially, cuz, fuck the end. Need I say more? These siblings have some weird age regression, homicidal, incestuous, completely ridiculous, and poorly written thing going on. And the movie is too 60's and not able to quite therefore nail down exactly what it is, lots of things being hinted sort of to, and some others not being hinted to, and instead we just get the idea "They're crazy" or at least Keir Dullea is, but no. Just no. It's shit.

I wanted a slow burn psychological thriller that would give me hints as to why Stanley Kubrick chose Dullea after seeing him in this movie. The best I can say for all of Bunny Lake is that it was ahead of it's time, I guess, but it failed in what I wanted. All I needed was some atmosphere, guys, come on. But really, the ending would have ruined it either way, so I guess atmosphere is not enough.