Annie Clark (aka St Vincent) and Carrie Brownstein set off on an unconventional road trip in this pithy meta-documentary.
Artifice is not a usually desired component for an artist’s documentary, but in the case of The Nowhere Inn it is entirely intentional. First-time filmmaker Bill Benz presents a metafictional mockumentary, concert film, and psychological thriller written by real-life friends and collaborators Annie Clark (better known by her stage name St Vincent) and Carrie Brownstein, who play fictional, satirised versions of themselves.
Clark invites Brownstein on the road to direct a raw, behind-the-scenes vanity film chronicling the touring of her Grammy-winning album ‘Masseduction’. Instead, what unfurls is the gradual breakdown of a friendship as their creative direction diverges across this album/film/tour triptych. The Nowhere Inn is fan service in the most St Vincent of ways: solidifying her mysterious image as a queer women’s deity, baring everything and revealing nothing at all.
Nightly metamorphosis sees Clark shed her tour bus blanket chrysalis and emerge as St Vincent – the latex-clad, lipstick smudged, guitar manhandling rockstar. Benz lenses this transformation in deep rouge tones, paired with, as to be expected, a fantastic St Vincent soundtrack. Brownstein craves such imagery, yet all her doc seems to capture is a jarring juxtaposition consisting of the self-effacing Clark being elated at a Scrabble double word score. This dissonance exposes cracks in their relationship, as the pair come to regard each other as director and subject.
While recent soul-bearing artist documentaries (see: Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry, Taylor Swift: Miss Americana and The Sparks Brothers) have gazed inwards, The Nowhere Inn has no interest in playing by conventional rules. Instead, Clark and Brownstein have produced an extension of St Vincent’s persona, with her sleek aesthetic seeping into the film’s kaleidoscope, psychedelic visuals. With each new track, Clark and Brownstein’s identities blur as they repeatedly turn the spotlight onto each other.
In the opening scene, the limo partition rolls down for the driver to question Clark on who she is and ask her to sing one of her songs (he doesn’t know any). “Don’t worry, we’ll find out who you are,” he tells her. It’s a promise The Nowhere Inn has no real intention of fulfilling. The film effectively closes the ‘Masseduction’ chapter of St Vincent’s career, giving way to her latest album, ‘Daddy’s Home’, a personal exploration of her father’s incarceration.
Published 28 Oct 2021
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