She
is a traveler like Starman, but cuter and a faster learner. A day or two after
arriving in the middle of the New Mexican boonies, she is already speaking
reasonably fluent Farsi. Neat trick, right? However, the naïve alien has a profoundly
less happy earthly double out there, so it seems a near-certainty they will
eventually meet in Natasha Kermani’s Imitation
Girl (trailer
here),
which screens during this year’s Dances with Films.
As
luck would have it, the first image the alien ooze comes across is a “sophisticate”
magazine left behind by the horny youth spooked by the loud crashing noise.
Juliana Fox was the cover model of that issue, so it is her image the Imitation
assumes. The desert is a harsh environment for a woman in a negligee, but she
manages to make it to the road house managed by Saghi, the son of Iranian
immigrants. He and his sister Khahar will teach her the essentials of human
living. They do not quite know what to make of her, but they quickly become
found of her, especially Saghi.
Meanwhile,
Fox is in the throes of an existential crisis. She has wearied of her work in
dirty movies, so she signs up for a long-shot conservatory audition after a
chance meeting with a former music teacher. Unfortunately, her drug-fueled
lifestyle is really starting to catch up with her.
Lauren
Ashley Carter, the horror ingenue star of The Mind’s Eye, Darling, and Jug Face
is terrific in the dual role of Fox and her imitation. They could not be any more
radically dissimilar, but she makes them both quite poignant in their own ways.
Neimah Djourabchi and Sanam Erfani are both very engaging but also believably
down to earth as the Southwestern Persian siblings. In fact, he gets the best
speech of the film, which he knocks out of the park. As an added bonus,
Catherine Mary Stewart (from Night of the
Comet) turns up as Dorothy Phan, the music teacher.
