#11 - Following (1998)

I have eight followers! Getting up there, lol.

Today's adventure in the world of movies is a Netflix recommendation, through and through.  I was looking for something to watch and it was one of the recommendations for me, based on my interest in Memento and Inception.  Following is also directed by Christopher Nolan (exactly as the two movies that formed the recommendation) and is a tale of a man who does just what the title suggests: follows people, but not so much as a hobby, but more of a compulsion borne out of curiosity.  Let's hope that it's better than Fighting, another gerundive title concept apparently interesting and complex enough around which to revolve an entire feature-length film.

His desire to follow people, as he claims, starts out because he's a writer and wants to develop characters based on his observations of the people he sees.  If he follows them, he can invent nuances, backstories, entire plots based on these people who become his imagination fuel.  But what happens when you follow someone who has his own "hobby"?  And this "hobby" could be more dangerous, and its basic premise comes from meanness and a dissatisfaction with the status quo.

Shot in black-and-white (which actually helps the film's gritty quality), the main character's world slowly starts to unravel when he decides to get involved with this other man in his "adventures".

Excellent performances around a very interesting script.  This is the kind of film that many would be dissatisfied with because of its non-linear style (see also: Memento, Inception, et al.), though the movie wraps itself up very nicely and I didn't often find myself asking, "What?"  Try it; you might like it!

Score: 8/10