What if the guy who finds the mermaid washed up onshore isn’t a hopeless romantic or a courageous prince? What if he’s just…some guy, living a directionless life packed with problems and looking for some sense of purpose?
That’s the question that opens Mermaid, the new film from writer/director Tyler Cornack, and while it’s a straightforward way to open a movie, this is also a story brave enough to keep you guessing beyond the confines of its hook. Dark, funny, and deeply strange, this is one of those movies that defies easy classification at every turn, and despite its often brutal conclusions, finds a way to infuse its entire runtime with surprising, irresistible warmth.
Doug (Johnny Pemberton) can’t get it together. When we meet him, he’s been fired from a thankless gig maintaining the giant aquariums at a Florida strip club, he’s got a pill habit he can’t seem to shake, and he’s a constant disappointment to his daughter (Devyn McDowell), her mother (Julia Valentine Larson), and her stepdad, Keith (Kevin Nealon). It’s gotten so bad that Keith is willing to loan Doug money just to make sure his daughter gets a birthday gift from her real father, but just as Doug seems to grasp the precariousness of that particular situation, another falls in his lap.
A chance discovery during a moment of peak depression means that Doug is suddenly playing host to an injured mermaid – the kind with gills and jagged teeth and fishy skin, not the kind from Disney movies – in his bathtub. Fascinated and instantly drawn to the creature, he decides to name her Destiny, and devotes himself to caring for her even as those around him are convinced it’s all just part of his never-ending downward spiral. But the deeper Doug gets into his new life, the more he risks exposing Destiny to dark forces, like a seedy local kingpin (Robert Patrick) ready to sell his find to the highest bidder.
Cornack’s film opens with a declaration that it’s “a love letter” to the state of Florida, with all the strangeness and transgression and scenic beauty that implies. Anyone who’s ever spent time in the Sunshine State can see that it’s a sincere mission. Cornack and cinematographer Joel Lavold capture the state’s ability to embroil you in relentless, bright blue skies punctuated by periods of intense heat, contrasting almost immediately with cool ocean breezes and sudden rain showers. It’s an environment of often staggering beauty and meteorological chaos, and that carries over into the entire tone of the film, a hybrid of comedy, crime, and creature feature horror that swerves and pivots like a runaway speedboat.
And yet, even as the plot careens in various directions that’ll drop your jaw, Mermaid also develops into a strange hangout movie, thanks in no small part to Pemberton’s performance. In the horror world, we’re used to seeing characters gain new vigor when a supernatural incursion on their lives forces them to rethink everything, but Pemberton’s Doug does not change overnight. Through dialogue, subtle expressiveness, and the kind of dazed fascination that punctuates so many slacker comedies, Pemberton makes Doug into a sympathetic character and an infuriating one at the same time. It’s a tough tonal dance, but he makes it work, and he’s backed up by a cavalcade of born scene stealers, chief among them Patrick and Nealon, who are clearly having a blast as supporting players in this dirtbag Creature From the Black Lagoon.
Mermaid won me over through the sheer ambition of its shifting tones and madcap plotting, as well as wonderful creature makeup and practical gore effects. It’s a bit sloppy around the edges, particularly when it attempts to steer between moments of earnest emotion and unhinged comedic chaos, but most of the time it’s just so beautifully singular that you barely notice it might be slightly overlong or a bit too reliant on its melancholic foundations. By the end, Cornack and company have, warts and all, achieved something that feels like The Shape of Water by way of Sean Baker, and that’s the kind of thing you have to see to believe.
Mermaid opens in select theaters April 8.
