The A-Frame

A quantum physicist creates a machine that is capable of opening a portal to a subatomic universe, and accidentally stumbles upon a potentially revolutionary cancer treatment. Blinded by his ambition, the physicist begins human trials, blurring the lines between science and ethics. 

In late October, I traveled to Trieste, Italy.

A port city in the far northeastern corner of Italy, Trieste is a mix of Italian, Austro-Hungarian, and Slovenian influences set hard up against the head of the Gulf of Trieste in the Adriatic Sea. Known as the “City of Coffee,” it was considered to be the end-point of the maritime leg of the famous trade route known as the Silk Road, and was an important deep-water port owned by the House of Habsburg, an aristocratic family that was as powerful as it was inbred. Now, it's just a nice little seaside city, and in October, it had a film festival called the Trieste Science Fiction Festival. While I was there, I saw several films.

The A-Frame was one of them.

Donna is a talented pianist on the verge of having her arm amputated. This is a last ditch effort in the hope of stopping her cancer’s spread. But then on the eve of the surgery, she is approached by a very obviously sketchy scientist/bro named Sam. Sam has an opportunity for her.

Sam’s work is untested and experimental. It is in the field of quantum physics. Concerned with the idea of parallel realities, he has built a machine that is capable of tunneling into a subatomic universe. The thing is, while his work is unrelated to oncology, it turns out to possibly have unintended side-effects on cancerous cells. Now he needs human test subjects. He warns her that it might not work, and that it might have unknown side effects, but adds that, at this point, her only other option is to have her hand amputated.

Donna agrees to take part, and as a result, her cancer is cured.

And of course, there’s some unexpected side effects, not to mention some gory fallout, all of which leaves Donna with the question of what do about Sam, who is determined to continue testing his machine on any desperate person he can find.

Loaded with ideas that ultimately don’t come together, all while barely exploring its themes, and making very little of its oft-mentioned multiversal entanglements, The A-Frame is a film that wants to be about faith and the question of mortality, as well as the desperation that comes with trying to escape your fate. It’s a film that seems like it’s interested in saying something about the bravery of facing your own impending death, but…

It doesn’t actually say anything at all.

There’s moments that work. Some of the moments as Sam becomes more and more of a mad scientist are definitely funny. And there are times when it’s much more serious, like when Donna attends her cancer support group. But mostly, as the film plays around with all of its various ideas, there’s a lot of awkward tonal whiplash. The story gets lost in its clashing tones, ping-ponging between being a serious piece of existential sci-fi, a poignant drama about facing your impending death, and a sarcastic comedy about science gone awry. A lot of the comedy comes from Donna, who is clearly meant to be someone who uses her sarcasm as armor to hide behinf, but the film never really dives beneath that surface. That’s mostly because The A-Frame is a very dialogue-heavy film. This is how it conveys most of its concepts, whether in the laboratory or the therapy group for cancer patients, its mostly characters talking at each other.

As a film, it’s mostly tell, not show.

There are some surprising gore and body-horror moments, but overall, it’s too fleeting to make it worthwhile. Especially as the film doesn’t seem to know how it wants those moments to land. Like so much else here, it’s maybe funny, it’s maybe sad, it’s maybe just desserts. It can't commit. In the end, the whole film just seems too guarded, like it’s always pulling back.

Which is too bad, because, while the film does end up feeling a little anti-climatic, there's no denying how generally well-made it is, at least as far as technical merit is concerned. And when the film does work, there’s no denying that it’s entertaining.

It just doesn't do this enough. The whole film like it was shot before the script was done, like it needed two or three more drafts.

The idea that this film is some kind of Cronenbergian body horror comedy is completely misleading, but that seems to be how it is being presented. It’s got some good gore, sure, but mostly, just like everything else in the film, it feels incomplete, like a hesitant half-effort.

Clearly trying to be a tale of ethics, mortality, and false hope, The A-Frame is a good attempt, I guess I’d call it. It's an almost complete film that feels like its script needed more some work to be funnier, to be stranger, to be gorier, to be darker, to be more dramatic, to be anything really, to be something, but when it came time to commit to being more of whatever it was going to be, it just... didn't.

Pass.