This film merits a place in the history books. Financed by a record-setting campaign on crowdfunding site Kickstarter, it exists because 91,585 fans of a teeny-weeny US TV show (which got cancelled in 2007) decided that the cast and crew of said show were capable of making a feature-length version. The fans didn’t want A-list stars, they wanted Kristen Bell back as the high-school private investigator and Rob Thomas directing, just the way it was on telly.
Last year, the supporters — they’re called Marshmallows — raised $5.7 million and Warner Brothers agreed to back the end product, which will be released in cinemas and on digital platforms simultaneously. If there’s one thing studios relish, it’s the chance to exploit a brave new world.
Did I say brave? The film’s plot (co-written by Thomas) starts as Veronica (Bell) is about to take up a respectable law job in New York but is lured back to her hometown of Neptune, California, for one more case. A pop star is electrocuted in the bath, an incident that implicates Veronica’s tortured, rich ex-boyfriend, Logan (Jason Dohring). Soon our heroine is snooping around with her long-lens camera and skeletons are tumbling out of the townspeople’s closets. I don’t care what the fans think: the murder mystery starts off stupid and gets worse.
One visceral scene shows Veronica laughing it up (at the after-party for a 10-year high-school reunion), while actually thinking about the murder. We watch her move, in slo-mo, and the voiceover makes clear that she’s faking absorption in the “fun”, just as her alcoholic mum used to pretend to enjoy family life. Mars’s back story is intense and weird. Bell and Thomas know this material inside-out and make it sing.
Look out, too, for Gaby Hoffmann’s lovely turn as an obsessive fan (which is all very meta, given the role fandom has played in the making of VM). Plus, a neat reference to Anne Hathaway’s vagina, an even neater cameo from James Franco and lots of gags about the Nazis in charge of the police force.
Thomas’s offering may not be earth-shattering but does induce a tingly sensation. If widely seen (whether at the multiplex or on tablets), it might pave the way for another girl, from another planet, who could really shake things up.
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