Yes, in general, people go see science fiction movies for their ability to craft a visual feast with the worlds they go to. But at the end of the day, the reason the great sci-fi movies linger is because of their stories. Strawberry Mansion is the case in point: Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley probably had a few thousand dollars to make their movie, so creating Inception level dreamscapes was out of the question. However, because they put a lot of thought into the screenplay, Strawberry Mansion succeeds where other mundane CGI fests could not.
After a really trippy opening sequence, we realize James Preble (Kentucker Audley) was dreaming, and that he has to pay a tax for every product he dreams of to the IRS. An auditor himself, James heads to a giant secluded mansion to conduct his latest audit: Bella (Penny Fuller), what you would define as a recluse. During his strange stay there, James finds himself growing entranced at Bella’s dreamscapes, which makes him look at his job in a different way.
Strawberry Mansion doubles as a love letter to the past, especially when it comes to costumes and props. In general, gone are the days of prop design and costuming, as bigger budgets and cheaper computers mean all images can be generated by a computer. Audiences underestimate how visually striking a costume can be. There are a few truly incredible creations in Strawberry Mansion, wielding emotions all over the map. Each costume serves its purpose, effectively conjuring the emotions the screenplay demands. At one restaurant in a dream, there’s a frog waiter who plays various musical instruments, confusing and delightful, setting a perfect tone for the scene. One costume is so scary I was contorting my body because of how uncomfortable it was making me feel. On the prop side, there’s a simple elegance to what Strawberry Mansion uses: “TEETH” toothpaste, multi colored products inside a totally pink shack, and maybe my favorite: the various headgear worn to analyze dreams. All of these concoctions make Strawberry Mansion a rare sci-fi experience, something similar to a Shane Carruth movie in its simultaneous complexity and sincerity.
But its Birney and Audley’s wonderful screenplay that makes all these costumes and props work as well as they do. They smartly don’t make you focus on the mechanics of their story, because the minute you start to unravel it the tale falls apart. No, the focus of this movie revolves around Preble’s emotional journey. At the beginning, he is an emotional void, a man going through the motions. But the minute he enters Bella’s world, something magical starts to happen. The emotionless Preble can’t help but open up to Bella’s almost paradise of dreaming, complete with an amazing soundtrack. From there, Preble’s dreams and reality start to fuse together, but he doesn’t really care because he’s found something to live for. That fusion of the dream and the real pushes Preble off balance; he learns about an emotional world of high highs, low lows, anger, danger, etc. But the screenplay finds something beautiful in each little sequence, painting a more emotionally complex picture while also being a fun little puzzle to solve for the audience a la Paycheck. By grounding the trippy in the emotional, I’ll be hard pressed to find someone who wasn’t satisfied by the emotional and imaginative journey Strawberry Mansion takes you on.
Bring back the costumes! And the good stories! I’ll trade all the Tomorrow War‘s for 1 Strawberry Mansion every year. The movie is an important reminder that just cause something looks expensive and flashy, doesn’t mean its the best. Sometimes you just want a movie where you feed strawberries to a pet turtle, while listening to the gentle jazz sax of your frog waiter.