The expressive potential of Leena Kopper’s discreet camerawork is a little hampered by the deliberate anonymity of Martin Reiter’s production design, which eloquently makes the point that, in terms of institutional sterility, Lola’s hotel bedrooms and corporate boardrooms are remarkably similar to Conny’s hospital wards and corridors, prompting us to wonder just which of the two is the more imprisoned. In fact, as though in an effort to rein in the story’s gaudier tendencies, the filmmaking can feel restrained to the point of constrained, particularly in the slightly repetitive third act. This embrace of messy, compromised ambivalence over cathartic narrative revelation may frustrate those looking for a more full-throated thriller denouement, but it gives Kreutzer’s film a depth of insight that is rare in the cinematic treatment of this most misunderstood of diseases.
Kreutzer, making a leap up in scope and accomplishment from 2016’s generational snapshot “We Used to Be Cool,” approaches her potentially sensationalist storyline with level-headed realism and her interest in exploring schizophrenia itself rather than using it as a driver for some disposable final plot twist is refreshing. In the production notes, Kreutzer herself mentions “Marnie” as an inspiration, and while Lola insists, “You would never know we’re sisters,” when she finally confesses her secret, the two actresses bear enough physical similarity that there are also faint echoes of the Judy/Madeleine dichotomy from “Vertigo.” It feels cunningly engineered to make us wonder if perhaps Lola’s self-discipline is not so much a character trait as a stringently monitored act of self-creation, an impression enhanced during a late scene at the salon when Lola, perhaps naturally a brunette like her sister, gets her hair lightened back to Hitchcockian blondeness.īut though not without some gothic, noirish elements - creepy phone calls and malfunctioning elevators - “The Ground Beneath My Feet” is not really a thriller at all.
This is a fertile, if slightly familiar, thriller setup, ripe with the potential for unreliable narration, doppelganger switcheroos, and maybe even entirely invented personas.
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