About her debut feature film, ‘Booger’ director, Mary Dauterman wants to gross you out. In fact, this was so obvious that at the Fantasia Film Festival premiere of the movie audience members got a paper bag with “Official Booger Barf Bag” written on it in black sharpie. But of course, everyone could guess that by its title.
‘Booger’ begins with some cellphone footage featuring best friends and roommates Anna (Grace Glowicki) and Izzy (Sofia Dobrushin) who find a stray cat has walked into their apartment through the fire escape window. They call him Booger because he is dirty and unkempt looking. A quick montage shows Anna’s change from disgust for the little feline to love for it.
Anna in present day sits alone ignoring phone calls. We learn that Izzy has died in a bicycle accident and does not seem like Anna is coping with it very well. She sends a text message to Izzy’s phone, which rings in another room before she goes to retrieve it and look at its contents; yet again another series of rapid cut clips.
In between bouts of major depression where she looks through Izzy’s phone obsessively and ignores people around her, we see Anna catch Booger as he licks at a houseplant then attempt to shoo him away so he doesn’t eat something he shouldn’t or get sick as cats do. Startled, Booger bites Anna and runs out the fire escape prompting Anna to go after him.
This is when the main thrust of the movie starts proper as almost immediately she began exuding feline traits; heightened senses which pick up sounds of bugs or small moving objects; contorting herself into catlike positions whilst falling asleep; waking up under tables or outside on grass; licking her own hair until fur balls are brought up; going off cat food (and worse things later said).
It would seem that she also begins to display some sort of physical symptoms. Booger’s bite wound grows and festers in a way similar to Nia DaCosta’s brilliant Candyman requel, long black hair starts appearing on her arms, and her teeth sharpen. Grace Glowicki shines in these scenes, and even Dauterman mentioned in a Q&A session during the film that it was one of the best special effects for her.
The movie inserts other scenes of Anna frantically looking for Booger as well as dealing with Izzy’s death. The rest of this film involves alternating between more footage shot on cellphones about Izzy and Anna together which sometimes repeats previous clips with additional context, and truly hypnotic dream sequences that are a sight to behold. In the end, we get to know more information about Izzy’s association with Booger.
Fundamentally, Booger is a film about mourning presented through various means, and it does not shy away from this. Anna has adopted some cat-like behaviors as she grieves; loss of appetite, apathy, personal hygiene abandonment and lack of connection with others around you.
Anna’s behavior towards her boyfriend and Izzy’s mom is distant; it seems that she resents them for taking over her grief yet they only want to be there for her during their own period of grieving at the loss of Izzy. She practically leaves her boss and job behind as well as ceases paying rent together with bills then quickly after that stops paying rent and bills in general while her apartment falls into disarray.
Anna really wishes the world could just leave her alone so that she could sit quietly in sadness over losing a friend but the entire rest of the world out there also yearns for the same thing as they want her to let them have an opportunity in sharing their sorrow together hence moving forward.
All this may sound like dark stuff, but luckily enough there are some moments of lightness too. There is a scene where that will make audiences roll on the floor with laughter because it involves Heather Matarazzo who stars as an equally intrusive store owner (from Welcome to Dollhouse) who has no clue on what she is doing. Lastly, Garrick Bernard plays Anna’s devoted but goofy boyfriend in a perfectly cast role with outstanding performances by both him and Glowicki.
Anna really wishes the world could just leave her alone so that she could sit quietly in sadness over losing a friend but the entire rest of the world out there also yearns for the same thing as they want her to let them have an opportunity in sharing their sorrow together hence moving forward.
All this may sound like dark stuff, but luckily enough there are some moments of lightness too. There is a scene where that will make audiences roll on the floor with laughter because it involves Heather Matarazzo who stars as an equally intrusive store owner (from Welcome to Dollhouse) who has no clue on what she is doing. Lastly, Garrick Bernard plays Anna’s devoted but goofy boyfriend in a perfectly cast role with outstanding performances by both him and Glowicki.
Watch free movies on Fmovies
