In a slight career side-step, A Fantastic Fear of Everything is the directorial debut of 90's indie band Kula Shaker's frontman Crispian Mills, although as his mother is actress Hayley Mills and father the late director Roy Boulting, perhaps it makes more sense than it may first seem. Based on a story by Withnail and I's Bruce Robinson, it's a strange little star vehicle for the increasingly high profile Simon Pegg, its success totally dependent on his willingness to make himself look a little bit daft by strutting around in his Y-fronts waving a knife at shadows.
When Jack is holed up in his apartment with his thoughts and creaky floorboards to drive his actions, it's a fabulous one man show of tense toilet breaks and hilarious over-reactions to the slightest noises, not forgetting the odd backdraft from the oven and some over-zealous use of superglue. Clearly a man who has spent too long by himself (there's a brief mention of an ex-wife), Jack is comfortable in his own company and no-one else's, except for perhaps the odd coffee meeting with his agent Clare which just further fuels his paranoia that everyone is trying to kill him. The second half of the film sees Jack visit a launderette that only highlights his social awkwardness and inability to act normal around strangers, including the rather lovely Sangeet (Darjeeling Limited's Amara Karan).
A blend of live-action, animation and (fever) dream sequences, some of its elements work fantastically well. The production design (the lights dim to reveal a stack of books forming the shape of a gigantic skull), the music, the stop-motion animation (Harold the Hedgehog gets to impart some life lessons) and more than anything the performance of an on-form Simon Pegg all make this film worth watching, but where it does falter somewhat is in its storytelling. The early scenes in Jack's flat are a lot of fun and you get real sense of the dread and isolation he may be feeling, but when Jack braves the streets to find a launderette to clean his shirt, the story opens up too much and the introduction of new characters takes us on a completely different tangent that doesn't quite live up to the film's early promise.
Verdict
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