People look for all kinds of ways to heal their
grief and disappointments in life.
In this film, Paul (Galecki) is grieving deep down over the loss of his
fiancé, although not really dealing with it. Finally, some advertisement for a “Master Cleanse” (“Let’s
get pure” is its message) gets his attention, and he ambivalently
responds. Participants have to
“try out” to get invited to a retreat by talking into a video camera about
their troubles. The “master”, Ken
Roberts (Platt), looks at these and decides who will be admitted into the
program. (Of course, most will.)
Paul has his eye on a young woman named Maggie
(Friel), an actress who has told a bitter story about what happened to
her. She rebuffs his approaches
offering sympathy, but on the first day at the retreat (in a beautiful setting
in the woods), there she is, although still rather standoffish. They also encounter another young
couple who were also at the same audition.
This very first day, rather strange things
start happening. Tellingly, the
film is categorized as being in the genres of comedy, drama, fantasy, and
horror—and that is part of the problem with it. Writer/director Bobby Miller has tried to incorporate all of
these, giving it a scattered feel.
It’s a bit confusing for the viewer at times because it’s not clear
whether certain moments are supposed to be funny, scary, or dramatic. For example, as suggested by the title,
the participants are given four foul-tasting drinks they are to finish before
nightfall. Of course, this
involves vomit and poop—which filmmakers now seem to think are inevitably
funny. When odd things happen in
the plumbing thereafter, we get a taste (awful pun) of horror. There is also one tragic dramatic scene,
which is not set up very well nor the couple involved really described in a way
that pulls at our emotions.
The film is a bit strange as well in the way it
has elements of psychological truths, such as those having to do with the
emotional drain of holding onto problems rather than changing oneself. These problems can grow larger if the
person continues to repress them.
The film illustrates these in a very concrete way, which is likewise
part comedy, part truth, and part horror.
This approach doesn’t quite fit with the spoof on trendy counseling,
such as the Huston character suddenly appearing out of the woods yelling at the
top of her voice (which is supposed to be a catharsis).
Galecki carries his lead role very well,
showing the different layers of his personality and weaknesses. Friel and he have good rapport when
they finally start bonding, and it is clever to see th the results of their
cleansing bearing resemblances to their personalities. Anjelica Huston and Oliver Platt are
wonderful as caricatures of trendy therapeutic gurus.
A therapeutic retreat to cleanse the body and soul produces some odd
creatures.
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