Mark Reviews Movies: DEERSKIN

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 30, 2020

A middle-aged man abandons everything in and about his life for, of all things, a deerskin jacket. To be fair, it's a handsome, if outdated, piece of clothing, but in case the absurdity of this setup isn't clear enough, the jacket itself matters a lot less than the obsession associated with it in writer/director Quentin Dupieux's Deerskin.

There's no explanation for the obsessive nature of Georges (Jean Dujardin), a seemingly ordinary guy who travels to a small town, drops a couple thousand Euros on the jacket, and then decides to live out of a local inn for the indefinite future. He wants the jacket, with its velvety smooth texture and still intact fringe, and once he has it, Georges seems to create an entire personality out of the fashion choice. He was a nobody before he bought the jacket, but with it, he could be anybody.

The central joke, perhaps, is that Georges, who comes into this story as a blank slate with a superficial goal, is as dull, senseless, and incompetent as we imagine he must have been before getting the jacket. With his new garment and a video camera the seller adds to the deal, Georges pretends to be a filmmaker to the locals, including bartender Denise (Adèle Haenel), who edits movies as a hobby. He says he's in town to make his new project, and he kind of does make one, with lots of shots of him posing in the jacket or the jacket on its own.

Georges gradually obtains more deerskin clothing, and he comes up with another idea to make something of the nothing that he is as a person. He'll convince everyone to give up their coats, and in the end, Georges will be the only person to have one. The task becomes easier for him and more deadly for everyone else when Georges sharpens a blade from the ceiling fan in his hotel room.

The movie, of course, is weird, but despite Dujardin's pointedly unnerving performance as the blandest of bland men, it's also a shallow one. Deerskin begins with the single idea: People can base their entire existence, purpose, and personality around their possessions. The screenplay may escalate events from Georges committing petty fraud to brutal murders, but the shocking nature of the story doesn't cover up that Dupieux's examination and development of the core idea remain static.

Note: Greenwich Entertainment is releasing Deerskin as part of its virtual cinema initiative, in partnership with select movie theaters. You can watch the movie via the distributor's website and help your local cinema (e.g., the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago). For more information and to access the movie, click here.

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