I watched it a while ago but I’m reviewing it just now because I needed some time to figure out how I feel about this movie. That’s the kind of movie it is. Plush is a psycho thriller about a female rock star who starts an extramarital affair with her guitarist just to find out that he is a psychopath who is trying to ruin her life and family.
Hayley and her brother Jack start a rock band called Plush and become very successful. They naturally complete each other and as a result the music they make wins the hearts of the fans. That is until the day Hayley meets her future husband – a reporter who later turns to writing criminal fiction – gets married and pregnant. That’s when Jack’s unhealthy love for his sister drives him to commit suicide. Hayley falls into an artistic slump and when she finally gathers her energy her album receives unfavourable reviews.
Still not fully recovered from the death of her brother and hit with low album sales she starts an affair with Enzo, her guitarist, in an attempt to find inspiration for a hit single. I don’t know how inspired she becomes as a result of the relationship but he surely does. The composition of their new single is going ok so despite feeling that the affair is going too far, she is not in a hurry to put a stop to it. In short: he has that inspiration drive that they need to succeed.
The affair turns soar when Enzo starts spending too much time with her family in a way as if trying to actually become a part of it. That’s when she freaks out and tells him to back off but it’s already too late. He shows her a movie he made a while ago about his life and suggests that he directs the video for their new single. She agrees. Again – he has the artistic vision they need to succeed.
The affair turns really soar when Hayley gets pregnant. That’s when Enzo totally loses it and starts trying really hard to ruin her marriage, his mother babysits her children, he wiretaps her house and even kills her neighbours so that he could move in their house and “be closer to the baby”. Oh, and he kills their manager because she said she’d help Hayley to get rid of him. Isn’t he “lovely”?
Eventually, he tries to kill even Hayley and her husband so in self-defense she kills him. And loses his baby. That’s when she realises that her brother Jack had not committed suicide but was killed by … yes, Enzo. The movie ends with her visiting her husband in the hospital. He says it would be better if she stayed in a hotel for a while as he needs more time to forgive her. So far so good. The last scene shows us Enzo’s mother dressed as a nurse in the hospital carrying a syringe with a medicine that I guess will kill Hayley’s husband.
I liked how rock style the movie was in the beginning. Psycho thrillers are not really my thing but I am ok with the storyline. What I dislike is the ending. I wanted the movie to end with her and her husband finding a way to each other again after she had recovered and released a successful album. Would that be too cliched? Such an ending would have given a totally different – human drama – feel to the movie. In stead this creepy ending puts the emphasis on the “there’s no escape from these lunatics once you mess up with them”. A useful message but it makes up for an unbalanced ending. The movie spends a lot of time on Hayley’s personal drama so why wrap up with this cat-and-mouse ending. Towards the end the story shifts towards Enzo’s psychological problems – which is ok, the story needs it – but it never comes back to where it all began which is Hayley’s hardships. It feels like the last five minutes of the movie were cut.
That scene where her husband tells her that he knows everything is unnecessarily creepy, too. He is digging something that positively looks like a grave, on a very very rainy night and intentionally looks like he is the mentally sick one. Why? Just five minutes later he will be his normal self. His temporary creepiness does not bare any connection to his personality and behaviour neither before nor after that. At this point the movie even feels kind of horror-y. Plot-wise his behaviour makes her run to the house of the neighbours to look for help which is when she meets Enzo and discovers the reality of how sick this boy is, so the husband’s behaviour is a plot device. But still, it felt fake.
I think that not enough emphasis was put on that moment when Hayley realised that Enzo is more dangerous than she had initially thought, overcame her fear and started playing him. Emily Browning’s acting didn’t really show any sign of how difficult this shift in attitude may be which I doubt is because she lacked acting talent. I think it was a directorial decision moreso because the editing and the camera angles did not imply it too.
I liked it that it turned out that Enzo had killed her brother. This somehow justifies the horror she went through as it allowed her to discover the truth about her brother’s death and to revenge it.
I don’t understand though why did she decide to have the baby and lied to her husband that it is actually his baby. Would anyone in their right mind want to keep that child? I feel like each and every of the characters had moments when they behaved like lunatics. You can never be sure who’s normal and who isn’t.
I think Emily Browning’s acting did a good job explaining why she decided to have an affair with Enzo. I liked it that the movie skipped cliches such as her feeling guiltier and guiltier towards her husband.
The soundtrack is really good. Check it out here and here and here.
undressinglife 