‘Kryptic’ Review – An Engrossing Mystery With A Clash Of Ideas [Fantasia Fest 2024]

Kourtney Roy’s debut feature Kryptic brings an air of mystery to its viewers, especially well after the credits roll. Roy makes it clear that she is not interested in providing a finite or compact set of questions and answers that we would see in any typical enigmatic narrative film. Perhaps that’s what’s inciting comparisons between her work and that of David Lynch, but in reality that is where these two filmmakers’ differentiations begin and end. To entertain a certain whimsy here, a line from the enigmatic cowboy in Mulholland Drive applies to Roy’s Kryptic in a somewhat satisfying way: “When you see the girl in the picture that was shown to you earlier today, you will say, ‘this is the girl.’”

Roy’s genre-melder follows Kay, a woman who has had some recent trouble getting out into the world and making friends. But something inside Kay drives her to remain isolated as she deliberately separates from the group to explore, conveniently after learning about Barb Valentine, a cryptozoologist who went missing in pursuit of the elusive Suka. According to the possibly over-animated tour guide on the hike, the Suka can supposedly influence the space-time continuum and has a scraggly bipedal form with a mole-like face. In this dump of information, we learn both too much and not enough to inform what will happen to Kay and her perception of events.

Kay documents her surroundings with a handheld camcorder, giving the audience a peek through the viewfinder when she presumably encounters the Suka after breaking from the group. It’s a neat parallel to the infamous Patterson-Gimlin film that was claimed to have captured the likeness of Bigfoot in the wilds of Northern California. The footage that we glimpse through Kay’s viewfinder of the Suka is genuinely disconcerting and disturbing, disorienting her to the point of amnesia as she stumbles her way back to the group and kicks off her bizarre journey that, in a nutshell, feels a little reminiscent of Christopher Smith’s Triangle (if you know, you know). But perhaps it leans a little too hard in continually trying to sell this mystery when it doesn’t need to. Its clashing tones also detract from the clear power Roy infuses into Kay and Valentine’s character, something that actor Chloe Pirrie taps into flawlessly but is met with such incongruous counterpoint that whatever point the film is trying to make here becomes a lone cry in the wilderness that feels as isolated and detached as its main character.

That isn’t to say the journey we go on isn’t an engrossing one. It puts Kay in predicament after predicament, progressing through episodic encounters with a genuine investment in pushing her to draw conclusions about her true identity even if it hurts for her to look inwards to solve this crisis. Once the group hike is over and she begins to grapple with her harrowing encounter with the Suka, Kay finds her way home and learns just how connected she may be with Barbara Valentine and her disappearance. On her way back to Krypto Peak she meets the owner of a local inn, who invites her to a get-together where Kay’s assumed identity will be put to the ultimate test.

Roy may have drawn comparisons to Lynch in how the film feels, but upon closer inspection, there’s a faint air, albeit a collapsed view, of Bergman’s Persona evident in the question of personality and the separation of identity. But the differing approaches give the film an overall flavor of situational comedy in a way, especially when the event Kay attends devolves into drunken marital disputes peppered with neighborly asides into the minutiae of each member of the community’s involvement with each other. This segment feels overly complicated and doesn’t have any bearing other than to overwhelm Kay and possibly the viewer.

This also feeds into the issue of different measures of approach clashing against the starkly established mood we become accustomed to in the film’s first act. As full of ideas as the script is there may just be too much in the pot, even if they support the center of Kay’s story; her search for identity becomes a vehicle for learning to be at peace with how others see her. It may very well be that Paul Bromley’s script introduces this episodic approach in Kay’s odyssey but the nature in which Roy directs it challenges the argument in ways that feel unintended. In all, however, there is something to be found in what Roy is able to do as she stylistically matches the meandering of lines between ownership of existence and confusion with a bookended stamp set firmly within genre film conventions. Kourtney Roy eventually sets her voice apart, demanding special attention to whatever project she settles on next.

Kryptic had its Quebec Premiere in the Septentrion Shadows section of the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Director: Kourtney Roy

Writer: Paul Bromley

Rated: NR

Runtime: 96m