‘No more lines means no more future…’
Hemingway famously stated that when dealing with writer’s block “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know”. As a critic, I don’t really need to fish for inspiration. I leech off the work of others like the disgusting parasite that I am. And yet, there are moments, particularly if a film is only average, in which it is difficult to churn out 500 words and get the job done. Blank takes the concept of writer’s block and wraps it up in a claustrophobic horror sci/fi fable…
Claire Rivers (Rachel Shelley) signs up for a fully A.I.-operated writer’s retreat to help her overcome writer’s block. Things start off rosy as her A.I. assistants encourage her to go out for morning runs and take in the views. Following an attack of malware, the kindly assistant Henry (Wayne Brady) is deactivated and the more malevolent Rita (Heida Reed) takes his place.
Quitters Inc. is a famous Stephen King short story in which a man signs up for a service in order to help him quit smoking. As the story progresses, the eponymous company go to more and more extreme lengths to stop the man from smoking including threatening his children and beating up his wife. Blank draws from that short story as well as more traditional sci-fi tropes (most notably 2001: A Space Odyssey and Ex-Machina) but does so in a way that still feels fresh and innovative. Shelley and Reed are both great in what is essentially a two-hander and first-time director Natalie Kennedy provides an assured hand behind the camera in adapting Stephen Herman’s screenplay.
While Blank is slightly derivative at times, it also offers a fascinating treatise on what it takes to create art, what it takes from a person and ultimately what it delivers when it is finished. A solid entry.