Film Review: Quite a Conundrum (2012)

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SYNOPSIS:

Sex, drums, tequila, social networking, a pirate, morning after pills, Jesus and a gun. It’s one hot mess!

REVIEW:

Winning the 2012 Feature Film Award at the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival was only the beginning for Thomas L. Phillips’ film Quite A Conundrum, a dark thriller sure to test any amateur sleuth’s wits.

Produced by Golden Lion Films and T-Street Productions, this dark thriller is in no way, shape, or form predictable, for what begins as a comedy quickly becomes a misnomer and not everything is elementary my dear Watson.

Mimi (Sasha Ramos) is a promiscuous college student forced to live at home by her wealthy attorney father if she wants her schooling costs covered. While this may sound like overtones of something horrendous, it couldn’t be farther from the truth, for the home is a twenty something’s dream complete with pool and parents often gone.

Tabitha (Erin Cline) is her vivacious best friend who is just as licentious, maybe even more so, and flaunts it flawlessly. While she has a softer side, it will take an unimaginable horror for it to emerge.

Kylene (Emily Rogers) is Mimi’s little sister who, although still in high school, seems to harbor a more mature mentality, yet still runs rampant with typical teenage gossip. She’s one of the few that knows exactly what she wants…and it’s her deepest secret.

Harris (Anthony Rutowicz) is Kylene’s conflicted nerd-type loser boyfriend, caught somewhere between obeying his overly zealous religious mother Thelma (Catherine Trail) and desperately wanting to experience a typical eighties teen movie having scants of nudity and drunkenness.

Sean (Chris Greene) is Tabitha’s latest squeeze and holds the very same uninhibited views as she. There is only one thing on his mind and while the girls down at KFC may offer, a guy does have standards.

Dutch (John Coffey) is a calm and cool friend of Sean’s…or is he?

Marc (John Lucas) is a fifty something, sensitive, passionate man who is extremely overweight, wears an eye patch and is soon to be made partner at Mimi’s father’s firm. He also happens to be carrying on an adulterous tryst with Mimi.

Lola (Julianna Pitt) is Marc’s seductive wife who knows of the affair, but appears to not care and would easily file for divorce at a moment’s notice.

The tale begins with Marc, passion hot and tossing out laughable sex talk attempting to excite a bored and sexually frustrated Mimi. While it’s easy to tell that in Mimi’s eyes, the thrill is gone. What isn’t so easily seen coming is her deluge of cruel words cold heartedly casting him away. It’s over and thus begins an enigma that would make even Agatha Christie proud. The challenge is for you to figure out. However, be forewarned, just when you think you’ve cracked it and have all the characters figured out, an abrupt turn will yank you in a completely different direction.

Perfectly paced, fully engrossing and completely shocking, this 82 minute film will grip tight and never let go. A refreshing deviation from Hollywood’s recent bout of dullness, Quite A Conundrum is a twisty, turning mountain road with constant peers over the edge and is sure to please most thriller genre connoisseurs.

Quite a Conundrum (2012)