Horse Girl follows Sarah as she goes through a psychotic breakdown, but rather than show this matter-of-factly, the film decides to show us this from her perspective. As you can imagine, she's a hell of an unreliable narrator, and thanks to a mixture of dream sequences, mix-ups of chronology, and questions of reality, it becomes a mess of "is that real or was it all in her head?"
It gets so bad that you even start to question if the more grounded parts of the film were even real. The film's point gets further muddied by certain events being undeniably supportive of her conspiracies. For instance the horse her co-worker sees in the car park appears twice, identically, strongly implying the time travel Sarah claims may not be in her head. Similarly she walks out of the shower and into the store she works at, showing a loss of time and distorted reality on her part, and yet her hair is still wet in the store, with that not being possible if she came straight from the staff room. On the flipside the entire dream sequence from her leaving the mental ward, dressing up in peach linens, and stalking around various setpieces as if they were all connected to each other (including the white room of the aliens), as well as a sex scene involving the character from her favourite TV show, absolutely could not be real by any stretch of the imagination.
This creates a confusing, messy narrative that doesn't want to settle on either side of mental breakdown or supernatural, and on the surface the film suffers for that. I remarked midway through that I hope it doesn't try to offer any answers, because any answer it offers would be unsatisfactory. Thankfully they didn't, because there's simply too much evidence to go either way. Instead what this does is put us directly in Sarah's shoes, as she perceives reality. We know there's no way some of this can be real, but so does she. She's not stupid. She knows she's crazy. But just like her, we also recognise there's too much evidence to support her for it be a complete fabrication. There's a shred of truth to her claims that no-one can deny. Imagine living life like that. Truly put yourself in Sarah's shoes and it becomes easy to understand how this mental slip can snowball so quickly. And for that I have to commend the movie for it's fantastic portrayal of mental illness. This isn't outside looking in like Joker or Black Swan, where we just sit back and watch someone lose it. This is a movie that places you directly in their shoes and makes you feel the way they do. It's real, but it's not. You're never really sure of what is or isn't real, but you know something's off. You know it looks crazy, but you also know it's real to you.
I will say this though, Sarah is insufferable as a character. I get she's meant to be socially awkward, but instead she often comes off as a busybody who regards her opinion on anything important enough to be heard by everyone whether they're interested or not. Her constant need to bring up her favourite TV show to strangers and health professionals is super cringy, as is her hounding of the new girl who takes her horse out. I understand the reasons behind it, but I can tell you straight out that she is not a person I would have much patience for. Maybe that's the point, that not everyone in need is likeable and easy to support, but it made it hard to sympathise with her early on in the movie, when it matters most. Alison Brie did a fantastic job of it though. She needs more high profile work. She deserves it. Her portrayal of a lonely, traumatised woman with no social acumen is heartbreaking to watch, because she nails it all, from the goofy looks to the expressions of terror and confusion all at once, to the complete conviction that she's right to the sudden mental and emotional flips beyond her control.
Horse Girl is unlikely to be anyone's favourite movie. It's messy, offers no answers, and offers us a character real hard to root for. However it's approach to mental health and putting you in her shoes as reality begins to breakdown is fantastic. I do just kind of wish it gave us more to chew on; more to discuss and dissect. As it is it's a fairly straight telling of a mental breakdown, but it would've been nice to amp up the supernatural elements a little more to make us question it more, but maybe that's just my tastes talking. I give Horse Girl a commendable 7/10.
It gets so bad that you even start to question if the more grounded parts of the film were even real. The film's point gets further muddied by certain events being undeniably supportive of her conspiracies. For instance the horse her co-worker sees in the car park appears twice, identically, strongly implying the time travel Sarah claims may not be in her head. Similarly she walks out of the shower and into the store she works at, showing a loss of time and distorted reality on her part, and yet her hair is still wet in the store, with that not being possible if she came straight from the staff room. On the flipside the entire dream sequence from her leaving the mental ward, dressing up in peach linens, and stalking around various setpieces as if they were all connected to each other (including the white room of the aliens), as well as a sex scene involving the character from her favourite TV show, absolutely could not be real by any stretch of the imagination.
This creates a confusing, messy narrative that doesn't want to settle on either side of mental breakdown or supernatural, and on the surface the film suffers for that. I remarked midway through that I hope it doesn't try to offer any answers, because any answer it offers would be unsatisfactory. Thankfully they didn't, because there's simply too much evidence to go either way. Instead what this does is put us directly in Sarah's shoes, as she perceives reality. We know there's no way some of this can be real, but so does she. She's not stupid. She knows she's crazy. But just like her, we also recognise there's too much evidence to support her for it be a complete fabrication. There's a shred of truth to her claims that no-one can deny. Imagine living life like that. Truly put yourself in Sarah's shoes and it becomes easy to understand how this mental slip can snowball so quickly. And for that I have to commend the movie for it's fantastic portrayal of mental illness. This isn't outside looking in like Joker or Black Swan, where we just sit back and watch someone lose it. This is a movie that places you directly in their shoes and makes you feel the way they do. It's real, but it's not. You're never really sure of what is or isn't real, but you know something's off. You know it looks crazy, but you also know it's real to you.
I will say this though, Sarah is insufferable as a character. I get she's meant to be socially awkward, but instead she often comes off as a busybody who regards her opinion on anything important enough to be heard by everyone whether they're interested or not. Her constant need to bring up her favourite TV show to strangers and health professionals is super cringy, as is her hounding of the new girl who takes her horse out. I understand the reasons behind it, but I can tell you straight out that she is not a person I would have much patience for. Maybe that's the point, that not everyone in need is likeable and easy to support, but it made it hard to sympathise with her early on in the movie, when it matters most. Alison Brie did a fantastic job of it though. She needs more high profile work. She deserves it. Her portrayal of a lonely, traumatised woman with no social acumen is heartbreaking to watch, because she nails it all, from the goofy looks to the expressions of terror and confusion all at once, to the complete conviction that she's right to the sudden mental and emotional flips beyond her control.
Horse Girl is unlikely to be anyone's favourite movie. It's messy, offers no answers, and offers us a character real hard to root for. However it's approach to mental health and putting you in her shoes as reality begins to breakdown is fantastic. I do just kind of wish it gave us more to chew on; more to discuss and dissect. As it is it's a fairly straight telling of a mental breakdown, but it would've been nice to amp up the supernatural elements a little more to make us question it more, but maybe that's just my tastes talking. I give Horse Girl a commendable 7/10.