Mackenzie Davis has been making increasingly stellar choices as an actor as her career has progressed. Recently, she’s turned heads in The Martian, the brilliant episode “San Junipero” of Black Mirror, Blade Runner 2049, and Tully. What fell under the radar was the independent film Izzy Gets The Fuck Across Town, which saw a tragically limited theatrical release. It features one of Davis‘s finest performances in a role that plays to her uninhibited acting sensibilities. Christian Papierniak‘s directorial debut is packed with manic energy and a contagious whirlwind of eclectic imagery, sounds, and personalities.
Izzy Gets The Fuck Across Town follows Izzy (Davis), an out-of-work, Riot grrrl punk rock musician who embarks on a wild ride across Los Angeles after she discovers her ex-boyfriend, Roger (Alex Russell), is getting married to her ex-best friend, Whitney (Sarah Goldberg). With every intention of crashing her ex’s engagement party, she’s met with countless obstacles along the way. Among the more pleasant obstacles is a moment of unbridled movie magic; it is a musical sequence between Davis and Carrie Coon (who plays Izzy’s sister and former bandmate, Virginia) that is one of the more transcendent cinematic moments in the past ten years. Make no mistake, though, although she may share some qualities with the tired character archetype, Izzy isn’t the Manic Pixie Dream Girl; she exists for nobody but herself, and that is a breath of fresh air.
Get the f*ck across your room to your couch, turn your television on, and rent Izzy Gets The Fuck Across Town. It’s a fever pitch of impetuous energy with an extortionate fervor that matches Izzy’s note for note as she embarks on this most-unorthodox road trip.
“axemen” & Heavens To Betsy
If you haven’t heard of Heavens to Betsy, they are well worth listening to. The DIY riot grrrl, feminist punk band’s entire discography is distinguished. From “My Red Self” to “Complicated,” one can’t go wrong. The lead singer, Corin Tucker, would go on to form the iconic band Sleater-Kinney with Janet Weiss and Carrie Brownstein (Portlandia). Before that, however, she wrote and recorded a song with her Heavens to Betsy bandmate Tracy Sawyer titled, “axemen.”
In Izzy Gets The Fuck Across Town, it was this song that Izzy and Virginia closed out every one of their shows with, Papierniak eludes to. It is this song that impinges upon the audience’s emotions like a paroxysm of vehement euphoria. It is the song the sisters are persuaded to reluctantly play by Virginia’s husband (Rob Huebel). This guitar cover and duet is worth the price of admission alone.
The story behind the filming of the scene is even more impressive. Carrie Coon had just two days to prepare and shoot not just her duet, but learn other lines of dialogue to act out and prepare with Davis as well. The fact that Coon and Davis were able to develop such a chemistry over what was, essentially, one night to prepare is nothing short of spectacular. The fact that it only took them four or five tries to rehearse their “axemen” cover before shooting the scene is nothing short of a miracle. “It just felt like guerrilla filmmaking in the best way.” Coon told EW.
“We ran through it a few times [that evening] and tried to find the right octave,” Coon said of her night with Davis preparing for their scenes, “and of course it never goes the way you think it’s going to go on the actual day — all the conditions are different. I was nervous about it! Especially because we rehearsed standing up and then we were sitting down in the scene, which you wouldn’t think would make a big difference, but it does to your diaphragm.”
*Note: See the end of this review below the trailer for a clip of Coon and Davis‘s performance, if you so desire.*
With Papierniak‘s camera trickery and some nifty editing by Zach Clark, Micah Stuart and sound editing and mixing by David Barber, Dustin Coffey, Gonzalo Espinoza, David Kitchens, Stacy Kitchens, Michael Kreple, Michael Lanoue, Luis Molgaard, Jas Pennington, and Erik Karsen Puhm in the sound department, the technical team behind Coon and Davis were able to make them look like they were playing the guitars while singing. If they were doing their own playing, then one would think they would be selling out concerts in the real world. Hell, I’d buy a ticket to one of their shows right now, either way. But it is Izzy Gets The Fuck Across Town‘s composer, Andrew Brassell, who provides the crisp dueling guitar sounds to accompany Coon and Davis‘s superb singing and vocal harmonies. It’s a wonderful ode to Tucker and Sawyer.
Subtly Sage Subtext
There is even further context behind “axemen” and its performance that makes it that much more mesmerizing. That is, the context within Papierniak‘s thoughtful story. Izzy and Virginia’s relationship is largely why Izzy is the unabashed hot mess she is today. Virginia decided to ditch the band and choose a domestic life and live comfortably. Izzy never chose to grow up and continued to pursue her dreams of making it as a rock star, floating from job to job to keep her head above water. When the reformed riot grrrl reunites with the still-loud and proud riot grrrl she once was and plays their most personal song, a hurricane of emotions permeates the room and penetrates the screen. Coon and Davis can tell an entire backstory, a million backstories, for that matter, with only their faces and vocal inflections. That they do it all while performing the “axemen” cover is confounding.
One could write essays and theses on this scene, the cultural impact of the song and the riot grrrl movement, and Coon and Davis‘s performances in said scene. But, I digress. Virginia’s moving on from the band is the one thing Izzy can’t do. All Izzy wants, aside from, on the surface, to break up her ex and her ex-best friend’s engagement party, is approval from her older sister. Davis is phenomenal in the role, conveying virtually every emotion capable of the human mind throughout the film as she encounters a series of bizarre, fascinating people.
She handles her varied, random, and erratic dialogue in the most superlatively, delivering her lines in a delightfully quick-witted way. Her physicality adds depth to Papierniak‘s script; her expressive eyes convey a considerable amount of subtext to her words, particularly during the aforementioned “axemen” scene (all while singing flawlessly). And on a dime, she can get in a character’s face, whether it’s Brandon T. Jackson, Luka Jones, Haley Joel Osment, or Russell. She does confrontations as good as Brett Gelman does. What can’t Davis do?
And Coon, who happened to be in Los Angeles filming The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter with Danny McBride and Josh Brolin at the time, makes Virginia’s difficult scenes look easy. Her icy cold stare at Davis‘s Izzy while she belts hauntingly in her stern alto singing voice demands the audience’s attention. To that end, Davis and Russell‘s chemistry is believable. Almost too banal and down-to-earth, which, if one juxtaposes that image with the riot grrrl Izzy we knew in the beginning of Izzy Gets The Fuck Across Town, is the likely Papierniak‘s intention. Will Izzy “grow up” like Virginia, or is this rebel not ready to settle down yet?
I Have To Go See About A Guy
If one actually reads the official premise on the Shout! Factory‘s (the company that distributed Izzy Gets The Fuck Across Town) website, they might think a social media-savvy millennial wrote it: “Riot grrrl rocker and shameless hot mess Izzy (Davis) wakes up hungover AF to find out that her ex-boyfriend is celebrating his engagement to her ex-best friend tonight at a bougie party across town. Enraged and desperate, Izzy embarks on a frenetic quest across Los Angeles to break up the party in order to fulfill what she believes to be her destiny… before it’s too late.” If that isn’t enough to intrigue somebody to check the film out, the outstanding supporting cast likely is. The aforementioned Coon, Huebel, Russell, Goldberg, Jackson, Jones, Osment, and Lakeith Stanfield, Alia Shawkat, and Annie Potts round out the ensemble of characters.
After waking up hungover next to George (Stanfield), Izzy learns the sobering news about her ex (Russell) and former bestie (Goldberg). Then, she decides to embark on her fateful journey. Along the way, Izzy learns that her car is delayed at the mechanic, Dick, (Jackson), her roommates Tom (Sheldon Bailey) and Casey (Meghan Lennox), who are trying to start a family, kick her out, she bikes to her friend Walt’s (Osment) house, who’s upset with her for not properly breaking up with his girlfriend for him, meets his date, Agatha Benson (Shawkat), who offers to take her to Los Feliz on the way to Glendale, but drops her off in a neighborhood called Miracle Mile, just over six miles southwest of the engagement party, where she gets stabbed by Agatha’s boyfriend, Rabbit (Kyle Kinane), after they rob a house, after which Izzy flees to a stranger, Mary’s (Potts) house, who then gives her a scooter, which she rides only to crash and fall, a metaphor for her current life situation, leaving her with one option: Virginia’s house. The rest of the film only grows more intense.
Finding Izzy
Izzy and Agatha’s philosophical conversations collide, and serve as an apt representation of some of Izzy’s idealistic principles. Izzy believes that all human beings’ fate’s are intertwined and that there is meaning behind everything, thus believing in destiny. Agatha believes everything is essentially random chaos, and that people will themselves to achieve their own destiny. Ironically, Izzy is, essentially trying to will her way to be with Roger. She’s also trying to will her way to become a rock star.
Izzy and Virginia were so close to becoming famous musicians. Izzy proclaims that her music is on Spotify, to which Tom replies that, if her music is on Spotify, it likely only consists of songs featuring Virginia. They are, and always will be, in a sense, emotionally connected through the art of music, and Papierniak‘s exploration of this theme is a beautiful aspect of Izzy Gets The Fuck Across Town.
“Not even the movies are like the movies anymore,” Izzy says at one point during the film. That statement couldn’t be more true with Papierniak‘s film. In an increasingly insane world, Papierniak‘s spastic, swift, guerrilla-style filmmaking and over-the-top characters combine for a welcome viewing experience. What viewers may not know is that he made a name for himself directing the popular video game franchise NBA2K, rebooting it for a new generation. It’s no surprise, then, that the fancy, retro-style animated Polaroid captions, announcing the chapters on Izzy’s quest that pop up on the screen, are pleasing to the eyes. Papierniak also peppers in fanciful dream sequences filtered through a pink-tinted, almost sepia-filtered hue, during which Izzy speaks with past (Ryan Simpkins) and present (Dolly Wells) versions of her selves. Papierniak‘s love for magical realism shows, and his attention to detail is impeccable.
Izzy Gets The Fuck Across Town: Get The Fuck To Your Couch
For any film, Izzy Gets The Fuck Across Town would be an impressive feat. But for a writing and directorial debut, Papierniak has crafted a masterful film that one would think was the work of a veteran filmmaker. Davis gives yet another star-making performance, this time on the silver screen, but, unfortunately, in a film that didn’t get the distribution it deserved. Now that it is on VOD platforms, it is well worth a watch. Stick around at the end for the original Heavens to Betsy version of “axemen,’ as the cherry on top of a unique, heterogeneous, bizarre, profound, and rewarding film.
Are you a fan of Mackenzie Davis? What was your favorite interaction on Izzy’s journey in Izzy Gets The Fuck Across Town? Do you like Papierniak’s directorial style? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!
Izzy Gets The Fuck Across Town saw a limited theatrical release on June 22, 2018 in the U.S. It became available to rent and purchase on VOD platforms on September 24, 2018. For more information on its release, click here.
If readers wish to watch the scene, Shout! Factory has posted it on their YouTube page, and you can view it below. However, in my humble opinion, it is better to view the scene in context. View at your own discretion:
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