After dabbling in directing shorts, actress Hailey Gates makes her feature debut with “Atropia”. Gates also pens the screenplay for the film, which is an adaptation of her 2019 short “Shako Mako”.
Fayruz (Alia Shawkat) is an aspiring actress in California, but opportunities to prove her abilities are few and far between. She’s stuck working at “The Box,” a military site that trains U.S. soldiers by immersing them in a realistic Middle Eastern environment, with the village of Atropia home to everyday people and insurgents.
Fayruz plays one of the locals, hoping to use her thespian training to bring a level of reality to her performance, also dealing with fellow actors and leadership from Hayden (Tim Heidecker) and Pina (Chloe Sevigny). When an opportunity arises to impress a Hollywood actor (Channing Tatum) who’s doing research for a film role.
Fayruz tries to make herself seen, only to catch the eye of Dice (Callum Turner), a soldier doing time portraying the enemy. Attraction is felt, but the relationship remains secretive, forcing Fayruz to understand her employment in a whole new light as she tries to hide her feelings. The bulk of “Atropia” follows Fayruz around The Box, interacting with technicians and colleagues, including Nancy (Jane Levy), who’s at the site to help sharpen her journalistic instincts in the Middle of a war zone.
Dice recognizes something different about the woman and finds unusual ways to get close to his fellow insurgent, which is played with an interestingly itchy sensuality. Dice is a little rough, but Fayruz isn’t complaining, and they embark on a secretive affair that takes some tonal and dramatic detours as it develops.
As many of my readers know, I’m an Iraq War veteran, and with “Atropia” being set in 2006, the same time I was deployed, I should have liked the film more than I did. Maybe it’s because last year’s “Warfare” resonated with me so much due to its authenticity that any movie about the Iraq War will struggle to measure up.
On the one hand, Gates aimed to use satire to convey an underlying message about the absurdities of war. This approach worked effectively in the non-satirical film “The Stanford Prison Experiment.” However, the conceptual blend of genres in “Atropia” feels disjointed. The romance between Turner and Alia Shawkat’s characters feels forced and awkward.
Additionally, the jokes in the film did not resonate with me, and the usually reliable Chloe Sevigny seems to be there just for a paycheck. Finally, aside from Jane Levy’s underused character, there isn’t a single character in the film that I felt had any redeeming qualities.
Perhaps if Gates had used a more modern angle on COVID in a FEMA camp, the end result would’ve been better, and the film wouldn’t have collapsed under its own ambition.
Final Grade: D+
“Atropia” is in theaters today.
