Give Me Pity! review – an exper­i­men­tal, eso­teric extravaganza

With­in the VHS-infused neon haze of Aman­da Kramer’s Give Me Pity! resides an unhinged, ghost­ly pres­ence hun­gry for spec­ta­cle. Its haunt­ing is inces­sant as it inter­cepts the fre­quen­cies of a one-woman vari­ety TV show front­ed by an ani­mat­ed Sis­sy St Claire (Sophie von Hasel­berg, Bette Midler’s looka­like daugh­ter), a small screen diva who’s ​“just dying to be known”.

But even her show’s face­less psy­chic refus­es to touch her. ​“The ener­gy sur­round­ing you is demon­ic”, she claims. In an almost entire­ly solo per­for­mance, Hasel­berg flex­es her immense act­ing chops as the star of an exper­i­men­tal and eso­teric extrav­a­gan­za that’s con­tained with­in a sound­stage, with a series of soul-bar­ing mono­logues that get pro­gres­sive­ly more strange as they mean­der towards delir­i­um. But is any­one watching?

Embrac­ing the camp ener­gy of ​‘70s and ​‘80s tele­vi­sion vari­ety shows, Kramer cross-pol­li­nates sketch char­ac­ter com­e­dy and musi­cal with Beck­et­t­ian mono­logues (which Hasel­berg deliv­ers with rel­ish) inject­ing her sig­na­ture over­sat­u­rat­ed aes­theti­cism into the for­mat with play­ful flair. She does this in a way that doesn’t so much rely on repli­cat­ing a funky and depth­less retro­fu­tur­ism through pas­tiche as it does on unset­tling nos­tal­gic sig­ni­fiers with a show that exists with­in an intri­cate psy­cho­log­i­cal vac­u­um, where the ego goes to live and die. The pro­duc­tion design, cos­tum­ing, make­up and musi­cal inter­ludes come togeth­er and con­coct a gor­geous feast for the eyes, and the film’s hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry atmos­phere is enhanced by its assault-on-the-sens­es approach to editing.

Kramer fires on all cylin­ders in terms of imagery and tone – both are per­fect­ly exe­cut­ed and entire­ly cap­ti­vat­ing. Aes­thet­i­cal­ly, this exper­i­ment proves to be a mas­ter­ful exer­cise in high camp. Yet once the beau­ty and zani­ness of the pic­ture ful­ly set in, and as Sissy’s façade cracks and the arti­fice dete­ri­o­rates through a series of hal­lu­ci­na­tions, the sto­ry­telling begins to fal­ter and feel less focused. The bub­blegum pops. Dis­tor­tions allow the afore­men­tioned unhinged spir­it to take full control.

Where­as the ana­log hor­ror ele­ments seem­ing­ly attempt to man­u­fac­ture a creepy and unset­tling atmos­phere, they fall flat, induc­ing instead a con­fused sen­so­ry over­load that makes the demand for our full atten­tion all the more dif­fi­cult to embrace. It’s a shame for an 80 minute long film with such strong ingre­di­ents to over­stay its wel­come, and in strug­gling to sus­tain momen­tum, Give Me Pity! is ulti­mate­ly held back from the same awk­ward pac­ing that kept Please Baby, Please from being a per­fect film. That said, all the ingre­di­ents are there, so it’s down to the right mea­sure­ments to ensure all flavours come togeth­er in harmony.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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