Berberian Sound Studio

Set in 1976, Peter Strickland's thriller follows the emotional disruption of Gilderoy (Toby Jones), a British sound engineer who arrives at an Italian studio to work on the soundtrack mixing for a giallo endeavor titled The Equestrian Vortex. But the normally reserved Gilderoy is out of his element, unable to connect with the studio's gregarious Italian staff, and ill-treated by the domineering tag team of the film's producer and director. The increasing unhappiness of Gilderoy's sole ally on the project, Silvia (Fatma Mohamed)—a voice actress hired to dub the film's screaming starlets—coupled with a series of somewhat menacing handwritten letters from his mother back in England, begin to erode Gilderoy's sense of well-being. Strickland never shows any of the footage from the production Gilderoy is working on, although the repetitious recordings of screams and hacked-up vegetables clearly suggest an unpleasantness that further shakes up Gilderoy's fragile state. Unfortunately, Berberian Sound Studio comes across as an odd and ultimately unsatisfying mix of The Conversation and Blow Out with liberal doses of David Lynch-level surrealism thrown in. A disappointing effort, this is not a necessary purchase. (P. Hall)