Reviewed by Aaron Haynes

When I saw the first screenshots for Abortion (the lady on the bench is now one of the most iconic screenshots of all time), I thought to myself, "Yay, another beautiful 'dark humor' film with no compelling storyline". While they make an effective team as far as pumping out movies, Jeremy and Santiago's track record thus far has been 0 for 1 as far as I'm concerned. Toll Free was a bumbling, confused narrative mess with no idea what it wanted to say and some of Jeremy's worst acting ever trying to say it. But, if you'll forgive a rather tasteless pun, Abortion delivers. Clocking in at just under two minutes, there's more grace and subtlety in the writing and direction here than five Toll Frees stacked end on end. Jeremy Dick, Santiago Miglionico, I owe you an apology. This was fantastic.

Categorically, I think a lot of people have labeled this movie wrong. Confusion about its stance on abortion is unnecessary because it doesn't actually have an opinion on the topic. It's a M.U.N., if I can create another acronym describing a subset of 3DMM films: The Mentally Unstable Narrator film. All the right calling cards for a MUN are here, with the narration explaining the character's twisted worldview early on (his explanation of what his wife is to him is truly creepy), followed by a sudden drastic change in his life leading into frantic rambling and rationalization on what he must do, and ending with a sickening punchline where the film cuts to black just as we understand what's happened. So if it follows a typical pattern, why such a high score? Because just as PAMs can be brilliantly entertaining (see Litterbug 2, DD), MUNs can engage the audience with well-written dialogue and amazing voice acting (Jaymond rocks the house YET AGAIN) and disarm our cynicism for the length of the experience. And Abortion is incredibly fucking beautiful to boot.

With Toll Free, we saw hints of Santiago's streamlined cartoon sensibilities with the way scenes had flat edges and looking incredibly solid, not one hint of scene glitching, unintentional cross-hatching, or size/scale issues. Abortion takes this to a completely new level, elevating it to a position shared by movies like Stranger 4 or DHIADW. My jaw dropped at some of these -- it's a strikingly beautiful (and surprisingly green) painting of upper-class suburbia. It's so perfect, in fact, that innately you sense that something is wrong and artificial about it, so it not only provides a contrast for the dark themes of the film, but seems to overlap into them, enhancing it all the more. There's very little in the way of character animation, but when tricky camera movement needs to be done or action needs to happen, it's well above the competent level.

I mentioned a certain shot in the thread, but it seems Evil Ash has finally out-examined me on a movie, calling up the symbolism the moon might play in contrast to the gravestone imagery I pointed out. The shot is hauntingly beautiful and says so much more than the narration could; even if Santiago wasn't sure exactly what he was doing with the mise en scene here, he knew the power of the way he positioned the background in relation to his actors. The gravestone hovering just behind our protagonist, and seemingly invisible to his wife, draws up a subconscious understanding of the way she can't understand what she's done and he can't get rid of it, resting like a stain on his mind.

Criticism has been leveled at the film for the logistics of his actions and the plot essentially being another mindfuck drama piece; these essentially cancel each other out. The movie is not about sharing an opinion on abortion, but using abortion as a trigger for our Mentally Unstable Narrator's actions. He doesn't retaliate on his wife because he doesn't see her as more than a vessel for the child he's always wanted, indicated by his dialogue earlier in the movie. And while I agree that the plot is conventional, it's anything but average. It doesn't transcend it's genre, but it brings enough powerful cinematic elements to it to make that genre worthwhile again.

Critical Score: 90/100.
Personal Score: 93/100.