“Trap Door at the Edge of the Universe” Film Review
Noah Warner’s debut film “Trap Door at the Edge of the Universe” is a fun and fresh take on film noir with help from some modern philosophical quandaries like the à la mode simulation theory being thrown into the mix. This low-budget indie film manages to maintain a smart and grown up flavor while artfully making fun of itself, its audience, and its own writers and producers.
The film begins in daring black and white, an homage to the classic film noir movies of the 1940s where we find our contemporary Bogart lead character, The Detective (Shawn Hamilton), as of yet a nameless but no less “stoical and manly” figure, as he later describes his own character. He is drinking Scottish whisky in his small Los Angeles studio/office when a call from his “dirty work guy” Charlie (Gabriel Horn) is interrupted by a knock on the door. Enter the femme fatale, Vanessa (later Alice, played by Laura Wiggins), dressed in a black lacy dress and heavy matching eyeliner. She has a mission for the detective to recover a priceless heirloom, though the detective is at first reticent to take on the task. Once he understands that money is no object to the femme fatale he is happy to oblige. And this theme, amongst many others, subtly and cleverly undercuts the rest of the story — money, is what motivates us all, whether we like it or not (regardless of its currency or whether or not its based in any real physical reality — but more on this later).
There are a few interesting political commentaries interwoven in the narrative - like when a lead Russian thug in heavily accented English smacks his crony for beating the detective, who had corrected the thug’s English. “I resent the idea that I do not take pride in learning the English language,” the henchman says, a neat criticism on the stereotype that immigrants don’t want to learn or improve their English once in America. And ultimately he lets the detective go for teaching him the correct usage of a metaphor. An ironical interplay that we will see again and again throughout the hour and a half long film.
The detective doesn’t mind the thugs beating him up too much though because, as he put its, he understands there is a “complex dichotomy of cops a robbers, if there weren’t any bad guys, I’d be out of the job.”
We see this paradox play out as virtually every character trades sides, literally becomes someone else, or demonstrates dubious character traits before the film is over.
As we follow the detective on his journey to uncover the clues the film keeps being affected by what looks like glitches and computer graphics, hinting that the thin fabric of reality is slowly disintegrating. The detective’s main side-kick, the dirty work guy Charlie, reveals that he has discovered cats literally disappearing into thin air, which leads the detective to uncover a wormhole or “trap door” at a laundry mat that leads to another dimension. In this reality the world is in color and the detective quickly learns the hard truth that he is just an imagined character in some other guy’s detective screenplay.
In one of the film’s most memorable moments the screenplay’s writer (played by Aaron Perilo) explains to the detective that he should know he’s not real because he doesn’t have an actual given first name. He’s just called “The Detective.” But when the writer reveals that his name is just “The Writer” we all become aware together that this isn’t the base reality either and the audience feels let in on a secret truth that maybe we are all just characters in someone else’s story.
From here things get more bizarre but never without losing hold of the thread or letting go of the sense of urgency to discover what all of these various realities mean before our main characters are caught and killed by the Russian mob or a faux-Japanese ninja (she’s a Filipina ninja actually, only faking a Japanese accent and identity because mobster clients pay more for the authentic thing). Along the way, there are many amusing plays on traditional film tropes such as when we see the detective, who eventually names himself Sly, chasing cats around town in a humorous alternative to a high speed car chase around the city.
We know we’re invested in the film when the writer, who later styles himself Max, complains to Sly that he knows none of his characters are interesting or have any real depth, because at that point we find ourselves disagreeing with him. And we find ourselves on the side of Sly when he defends his character and says “I think the detective is your best character, personally.” Interestingly, we meet Max as he is asleep from having drunk too much whisky, a hint that Max has embedded some of himself into Sly’s whisky-loving characterization.
There are nice consistencies and throw backs to early conundrums and philosophical problems like when Sly complains to the writer, “The whole reason my universe got fucked up is because you got shit-faced and made a bunch of typos.”
Again neatly highlighting the importance of good grammar and English as before when Sly taught the thugs the metaphor, while also playing on the philosophical proposition that this whole universe is a beautiful accident or that our creator could just be a drunken and poor writer in some cramped studio off Melrose.
Max responds saying, “If I had to worry about destroying a universe every time I crumpled a piece of paper, I’d never be able to write anything at all.” This is a nice political touch on the ethical dilemma for the individual today, since this is the issue we all face in terms of lessening our environmental impact, which is also an underlying theme to the film.
You could at least pretend to care, Sly suggests to Max who yells, “No, I do care. It sucks! What can I do about it?” Ironically, this is the way most people in the west could be said to respond to suggestions towards taking a personal responsibility for the fate of the environment — or for that matter, for any number of atrocities and injustices that take place in the world.
The problem is highlighted by the metaphor of having different realities to turn to, which the mafioso boss alludes to when he references the Duke of Westphalia. Thereby hinting on the Westphalian global system, where each state was decreed to have sovereignty over its dominion on the principle of non-interference. This begs the question, is a system carved out centuries ago by western powers, really the best system in our contemporary and global world where we are all affected by climate change and other global issues? Should each state or reality have the right to be independent realities, unaffected by outside interference?
Maybe, maybe not, but that is not how our heroes proceed, since they take it upon themselves to fix things in each reality after they discover a magical map (produced by Merlin a.k.a Charlie) which will lead them to the base reality of The Garden of Eden, where all currencies from every reality can be exchanged.
The hilarity of this last point beautifully forefronts again the unavoidable fact that money, ultimately is what’s motivating all of the characters from Merlin, who wants to exchange his Camelot gold, to Sly whose wads of cash from the femme fatale are now just stacks of monopoly money, to Max who reveals that the only reason he’s working on this movie is because a rich producer “who is a bit of a dick” wants to give him some work.
Though the film is a bit long perhaps and thus the magical ending sequence might lose some of its punchiness, the ride to get there is incredibly enjoyable with lots of smart thought-experiments, fun gags, and reimagined classic film tropes that ardent film goers and first time indie film watchers alike will be able to appreciate and enjoy. There is something for everyone in this movie and it left me ready to see what will come next from Noah Warner.