A troubled man (Mr. Robot’s Rami Malek) on the run recalls the mysterious events that brought him to his present fugitive state, in the enigmatic, elliptical and moving second feature from director Sarah Adina Smith (Midnight Swim).
Buster (Rami Malek) was once Jonah, a hard-working husband and father whose job as the night-shift concierge at a hotel took its toll on his mood and, consequently, his marriage to the sensitive and long-suffering Marty (Kate Lyn Sheil) — until a chance encounter with a conspiracy-obsessed drifter (DJ Qualls) changed the course of their lives forever. As the sad and solitary present-day Buster drifts from house to house and eludes the local sheriff at every turn, we gradually piece together the events that fractured his life and left him alone on top of a snowy mountain, or perhaps in a small rowboat in the middle of a vast ocean — or both.
Following the found-footage genre twister The Midnight Swim, Sarah Adina Smith's second feature puts her on another level as a writer and director. Beautiful, enigmatic and elliptical, Buster's Mal Heart also features a powerful performance from Malek as the silent, broken protagonist. Taking his first big-screen leading role after his starring turn in the hit TV series Mr. Robot, Malek proves here that he's more than capable of carrying the weight of a feature film.
COLIN GEDDES