Door Mouse: Noir tale of a comic-creator/stripper/investigator is fast but may be literally too graphic
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B-minus
A delicate descriptor I’ve used in the past for indie first-features that aren’t exactly masterpieces out of the gate is “innocence of style.”
Style, happily, is not a problem with Door Mouse, veteran actor Avan Jogia’s low-budget noir that uses its premise – comic book creator/stripper follows the trail of dead strip-club friends – to pump up the sluggishness that often afflicts attempts at the genre.
Hayley Law is Mouse, the sleuthing comic book artist in Door Mouse.
If anything, the Canadian-made Door Mouse, sometimes overcompensates with too much style. Mouse (Hayley Law) is sometimes shown seeing events through comic-book eyes (in the course of the film, she inks the events and starts making money off her comics for the first time).
This is a nice touch for the most part. However, when it’s used in place of action scenes and shooting, it’s hard to not make it look like we’re seeing an unfinished cut (“action scene to be added later”).
Still, Jogia has clearly paid attention on sets, and knows how to frame a scene and move a camera with some flair. The editing is also fast and propulsive, as are the blasts of punk/metal music.
The story? We meet Mouse in her graffiti-strewn flat getting out of bed in the afternoon for her morning coffee. This is, as many things are in this overly expository movie, described by Mouse in narration (they could have simply shown us a clock).
Within minutes, we know her story and she’s in the strip bar with her dapper, dreadlocked, handsome best friend, oxymoronically named “Ugly” (Keith Powers) and the strict club owner Mama (Famke Janssen).
In for a glass or two as well is Eddie (Donal Logue), the club barfly who is there for no apparent reason narratively.
The immediate topic of discussion is the no-show of fellow stripper Doe Eyes (Nhi Do). Uh oh.
Doe Eyes’ disappearance, and disappearances to come, obsess Mouse to the point of danger (and break her creative paralysis as she pretty much draws a diary of events, to the delight of the comic store owner who can’t keep her new crime tale in stock).
Is she doing it for selfish purposes? That’s ambiguous, and there are few “tells” in people’s expressions in this deadpan tale. And the dialogue, much of which is directed at Mouse, warning against going places she shouldn’t, is cliché to the extent that I wondered whether the film was actually a genre parody.
Mouse herself seems to be a character auditioning for a franchise. Her van has “Eat the Rich” painted on it. She has colourful friends, including Mooney (played by the filmmaker Jogie), a drug dealer with a heart of gold, with whom she sleeps for information. And enemies as well, including The Dame (Elizabeth Saunders), a sex trafficking hostess for the rich, who seems to be the only character in the movie capable of smiling, however evilly.
And when the time comes to kick butt or use a gun – surprise! – Mouse turns out to be pretty good at both (though the gunfire scenes tend to be, you guessed it, in comic panel form).
Door Mouse isn’t exactly noir for the ages, and it has story problems. But it moves, and as played by Law, Mouse is a dead-pan heroine I’d like to see again, backed by a bigger-budget.
Door Mouse. Written and directed by Avan Jogia. Starring Hayley Law, Famke Janssen and Keith Powers. Opens in select theatres Jan. 13