By Design (Drama)

Rating:

Director: Amanda Kramer
Producer: Natalie Whalen,Sarah Winshall,Miranda Bailey,Jacob Agger
Screenwriter: Amanda Kramer
Cinematographer: Patrick Meade Jones
Composer: Giulio Carmassi,Bryan Scary
Editor: Benjamin Shearn
Production Designer: Grace Surnow
Costume Designer: Sophie Hardeman
Key Cast: Juliette Lewis,Melanie Griffith,Robin Tunney,Samantha Mathis,Udo Kier,Mamoudou Athie

In this absurdist satire from maverick indie filmmaker Amanda Kramer, a woman is magically transformed into a chair – and discovers that everyone likes her better that way.

On an antique-shopping expedition with bitchy friends, lonely and dissatisfied Camille (Juliette Lewis) is gripped by envy at the sight of a particularly sublime chair: “its beauty, its usefulness, its deserving of praise”. Her yearning is literalised when she swaps bodies with the piece of furniture, inhabiting its unmoving wooden structure as her human body turns lifeless, motionless – chair-like. While her friends and mother love this new silent and compliant Camille, the chair ends up in the possession of heartbroken Olivier (Mamoudou Athie), who grows increasingly enchanted by it. Is Olivier merely in love with the chair’s gorgeous design, or is he falling for the trapped soul of Camille?

At once sharply satirical and utterly deranged, Amanda Kramer’s (Give Me Pity!, MIFF 2022) singular riff on the body-swap trope offers a searing critique of objectification and the contemporary obsession with image-making. Narrated by Melanie Griffith, replete with fellow 90s screen icons (Lewis, Samantha Mathis, Robin Tunney) and featuring a truly wild Udo Kier cameo, By Design takes its strange premise to unhinged – and un-upholstered – places, full of interpretive dance, outsized performances and throbbing sexuality.

“Amanda Kramer was already one to watch and her fifth dramatic feature proves she is an unmatched voice in American indie cinema … a wry commentary on the objectification of women and commodity fetishism.” – Sight and Sound