Queen of Earth (2015, Alex Ross Perry)

Catherine (Elisabeth Moss of Top of the Lake and Listen Up Philip) and Virginia (Katherine Waterston, the troubled ex in Inherent Vice) spend a week at Virginia’s lake house to bond while Cath is recovering from a breakup. They’re shitty friends though, and the presence of neighbor Rich (Patrick Fugit, main rock groupie kid in Almost Famous) makes Cath crazy – although she doesn’t seem to need much outside help to go crazy. The movie flashes back to the previous summer when they were joined by Cath’s ex James (Kentucker Audley of Christmas Again).

Great atmosphere, shot by Perry’s usual DP Sean Price Williams and edited by Robert “Actress” Greene, and the actors are fun to watch even if their characters are unbearable. More enjoyable on a moment-to-moment basis than Listen Up Philip, I suppose, without the sharp power of that one’s ending. Cameo by Kate Lyn Sheil towards the end.

M. D’Angelo called it Random Creepy Affectation: The Movie.

J. Cronk in Cinema Scope:

At once a character study in the guise of a psychosexual thriller and a parable of friendship filtered through a prism of horror tropes, the film is, perhaps more significantly, a harrowing depiction of depression and the debilitating effects of hereditary paralysis. … Like a lot of Perry’s characters, these women are almost comically mean-spirited as they verbally disarm the opposing party with exceptional eloquence. “One of the worst tendencies of human nature is to assume the best of one another,” Virginia matter-of-factly states in the film’s centrepiece sequence, an unbroken six-minute shot which subtly interrogates each woman as they painfully detail instances of past romance and betrayal, effectively encapsulating Perry’s entire worldview in one bravura gesture.