Everyone Asked About You is a mess: a confusing and frustrating fever dream of a film, full of mediocre performances, a clumsy script, and a clueless approach to directing.
The film stars Rachel Balit as Simone, a woman who was a child star and is desperate for the big opportunity she’s always dreamed of. Her co-star is John Lacy as her boyfriend, Jack. Lacy is also the writer and director of this baffling heap, and thankfully, his performance isn’t as terrible as other writer/directors starring in their own movies tend to be.
The biggest issue is the editing and erratic nature of the plot. The film portrays Simone as one of those bitter starlets from the black-and-white era. The problem is that the film takes place in modern day, so unless Simone is supposed to be a vampire, the presentation of her character in early scenes makes no sense.
Her age and the time when her stardom peaked are never stated, and that’s likely because no one in charge of this movie bothered to create a consistent sequence of events, whether for the backstory or the main plot. My best guess is that the sitcom she was in at age 12 ran during the 1980s, which makes the constant use of black-and-white filters totally pointless.
Simone’s character would make a lot more sense if the main plot were set in the 80s, with her peak happening closer to the time when black-and-white movies were still a thing. I’m sure the main reason why this isn’t a period piece is that the required props and wardrobe would need a budget far outside the filmmaker's means, but he went on with the script anyway.
The overall direction and editing of the film swaps between long, meandering scenes and random flashbacks that were thrown in wherever and whenever the editor felt like it. All these attempts at artistic flair come off as the work of an amateur doing their best to give the movie the feeling of something more profound than it is. It feels low-rent and haphazard in a way only the human mind is capable of, because even AI wouldn’t think that a random splattering of filters and flashbacks qualifies as a film.
Somewhere at the core of this mess is a message of how child stars, especially women, are systemically abused in show business, and while there is surely a filmmaker out there who can make a poignant and at least decent film on that subject, John Lacy is not that man. This film doesn’t even come close to executing that idea with the gravity and ironic glamour that it deserves.
The only reason to watch Everyone Asked About You is for a bad movie night. Through its incoherent edits and lackluster performances, you would only be left confused, wondering why you wasted the last 90 minutes of your life.
Author Bio:
Ulises Duenas is a senior writer and film critic at Highbrow Magazine.
For Highbrow Magazine