A One Mann’s Movies review of “Borderline” (2023).
This low-budget movie is currently streaming only on Tubi in the US, but may be available elsewhere soon. I was sent a screener for it.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
Plot Summary:
Charli (Kate Lý Johnston) is in a mess. She is bi-polar, off her meds, and a drug-addict spiralling down into the gutter. She lives with her best friend Zee (Kylee Michael) who is also a party-animal and a drug taker. Charli is a bisexual, with designs on Zee but who wants to keep things platonic. She also has sex with her on/off boyfield Kyle (Irmon Hill) which appears unsatisfactory (well, at least, the orgasms seem to be very one sided!). As Charli digs herself into more and more trouble with local drug-dealers, can she find a route to escape?
Certification:
UK: NR; US: NR. (Not rated, but from the content – sex and language – I would have thought this would be a 15 in the UK and an R in the US).
Talent:
Starring: Kate Lý Johnston, Kylee Michael, Irmon Hill, Quentin Boyer, Jennifer Penner, Emma Jade.
Directed by: Rich Mallery.
Written by: Rich Mallery.
Twitter Handle: -.
Keeping things purely platonic and, for once, their tits covered: Charli (Kate Lý Johnston) and Zee (Kylee Michael). (Source: Cinema Epoch)
“Borderline” Review:
Positives:
- The two leading actresses in this – Kate Lý Johnston and Kylee Michael – are actually pretty good, given the material they have to work with. Johnston in particular manages to deliver her drug-withdrawal-induced rages without tipping over into laughable parody, which could well have been the case.
- I liked the way we switched in and out between Charli’s reality and her parallel fantasy world. The imagined ‘park’ scenes with Charli and Dee are actually nicely shot by cinematographer Louis DeStefano.
Negatives:
- The director, Rich Mallery (or should that be “Mammary”) exploits the good nature of his two young female stars no end. He takes virtually every opportunity for them to get their tits out. (I say virtually, since in one bizarre scene she wakes up in bed after a night of sleazy sex with Trevor (Quentin Boyer), her foot-fetish doctor boss, still wearing a bra! Very strange!) In some shots you see their full naked form from the rear. Now it’s not that I’m averse to seeing naked females in a movie (and there’s no denying that they are both very attractive and pert young things). But this felt overly exploitative. The other main female lead, Emma Jade as the viscious drug dealer Sarah, also gets her baps out in a totally unnecessary changing scene. (Although looking at her IMDB history, it looks like she is more used to doing that in front of the camera!) Only Jennifer Penner as their friend Heather gets to keep her clothes on. Perhaps she “just said no”: good for her!
- The movie actually has some pretty decent production values for many scenes, but then desperately lets itself down for others. There’s a scene in Dr Trevor’s consulting room that looks like it’s filmed in the corner of someone’s dining room. Couldn’t they have crashed an office building to film in?
- The music score (no credited composer) is occasionally blaring and intrusive.
Summary Thoughts on “Borderline”
I regularly get sent these types of “straight to internet” screeners and I often enjoy watching them. Not because they are often any good per se, but to spot little gems of acting, cinematography, editing etc in someone’s early work. In this case, that gem was the acting of the two leads Kate Lý Johnston and Kylee Michael. OK, so its not yet Oscar worthy. But I thought it was pretty decent. The rest of the film feels like a slightly sleazy soft-porn movie, running through various tropes of the ‘druggie culture’ movie genre. But it’s actually more watchable than many low-budget films that come my way.
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Trailer for “Borderline”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJv2OrK5XGU .
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