Eric
wants to be the vintage clothing king of Texas. Unfortunately, his wife April
has some Texas-sized jealousy and self-esteem issues. Clothes are how she
self-medicates. When she falls under the spell of someone who feeds and
exploits her addiction, it probably leads to some extreme behavior, but it is
hard to tell what is real and what is delusion in Simon Rumley’s Fashionista (trailer here), which screens
during the 2017 Frightfest in the UK.
Initially,
Austin hipsters April and Eric seem to enjoy living together amid the mountains
of clothes he calls “stock” and she considers her wardrobe. However, when he
starts spending more time in Dallas preparing their second store, she inevitably
suspects he is cheating. There might be something to her fears, but her paranoid,
passive aggressive behavior ironically pushes him further into infidelity.
Seething from his betrayal, April allows the slimy but very rich Randall to
pick her up. He has a bit of a fetish when it comes to women’s clothing, but
strictly for his partner to wear. Randall starts dressing April in high-end
couture, but he clearly has a nefarious agenda.
We
get hints of his evil machinations in nearly subliminal flashforward snippets.
At least we assume they are flashforwards. Rumley so thoroughly smashes
narrative linearity, it is dashed difficult for viewers to piece it back together
on the fly. Frankly, we always have good reason to doubt the legitimacy of everything
we are watching supposedly transpire. That makes Fashionista rather exhausting, but Rumley and editor Tom Sainty cut-and-paste
it together with such a sure hand, it is always compelling to watch.
In
a tour de force performance, Amanda Fuller is terrifying, infuriating, and
stripped bare to the point of utter vulnerability. Eric Balfour (recognizable
to many for surviving pretty late into the original 24 as Milo Pressman) is spectacularly sinister as the manipulative
Randall. Ethan Embry, who has become a go-to horror guy in films like The Devil’s Candy, Late Phases, and Cheap Thrills, helps tether the film to
something we can consider reality, but it is hard to understand why he doesn’t
shun April like the plague.
