This film deserves to be at a film festival. Maybe it should stay there.

I’ve learned that just because film festivals can lead to some pictures receiving widespread distribution does not mean that they should. After all, film festivals are mainly for people who treat cinema as an art form that is constantly evolving, which means watching extremely challenging films. Most of the time, these films force us to rethink how stories can be told in cinema. Sometimes, these pictures confound even the most pretentious film snobs out there.

And I was one of those snobs who did not get this.

It’s a shame–I’ve heard a lot about Werner Herzog, and this was my first film of his I’ve seen. And as a lover of films with a lot of offbeat whimsy in them, I was also excited for the German director’s take on it. After all, Germany has been home to some of the most wild and groundbreaking fairy tale writers, from the Grimm brothers to Wim Wenders. What could go wrong?

Well, take the plot.

It’s a weird mix. We start off in a courtroom drama, where Jean and Joan Holbrooke have a restraining order against them for harassing their neighbor, who they proclaim they love for. Jean and Joan Holbrooke aren’t twins, but they are attached to the hip, surgically some might say. They do everything together, and by everything I mean everything. They serve tea together, they vacuum their apartment together, they even have a threesome with the same man together. After bearing the brunt of media scrutiny due to the trial, the two sisters move out to the Irish countryside to visit their aunt, and they plan to dig through some tunnels in a cave to reach the Orchny Islands, where they can finally belong somewhere. It’s a sweet story. But the execution is severely flawed.

There’s multiple plot angles that Werner Herzog picks up and delves through, only to discard five minutes later. Domhnall Gleeson plays a social worker who visits the sisters regularly and tries to integrate them into the rest of society, but he’s barely in the film. There’s a subplot where rural Irish farmers are trying to eradicate the local fox population, but that doesn’t cause any shifts. And then there’s the nature of the sister’s relationship themselves. There are a few moments where they fight, but there’s little if any conflict. It’s nice that Herzog allows the sisters’ central relationship to be the main focus, but there’s hardly any insight into who the sisters are on their own.

Which is also a shame too, because the Mara sisters are superb in this. Each of them have outstanding resumes, spanning from Her to House of Cards to The Social Network to Brokeback Mountain. They both play two halves of a singular whole, and it’s compelling to watch. I found myself drifting between the two of them when they were onscreen. It’s an ingenious way to depict characters who share the same soul. In a way, it makes me angry the rest of Bucking Fastard didn’t follow suit.

I think this film goes under the kind of film I dislike because it has so many ideas that I should like. I’m a huge fan of weird cinema, and Bucking Fastard has weird written all over it. Hell, the title itself is incredible! There’s weird yet endearing characters that you can’t help but root for. There’s people trying to make the best of their circumstances with impossible dreams they can’t help but yearn for. And yet the Bucking Fastard fell flat on its face. By going too deep into its own whimsy, it doesn’t stop to question and look for deeper meanings. It’s so arthouse it practically deserves its own festival. As for Werner Herzog though, maybe his other films might do it for me.

But yeah, Bucking Fastard wasn’t it.

FURTHER THOUGHTS

• At least I got a good seat at Alice Tully Hall when I saw this. That theater is incredible!
• Ser Duncan the Tall has a cameo in this.
• I love that once Orlando Bloom and Katy Perry divorced, Bloom decided to go full weird. He’s out-weirded Katy Perry. That’s an accomplishment.