An Andrew Garfield flick that allegedly prompted festival walkouts when it was shown is now available in the UK - you can check out the trailer here:
Mainstream is a comedy-drama that centres on struggling Hollywood-based filmmaker Frankie (played by Maya Hawke) who finally finds success after meeting up with a charismatic - and slightly baffling - stranger called Link (played by Garfield).
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A synopsis of the film reads: “In this cautionary tale, three people struggle to preserve their identities as they form an eccentric love triangle within the fast-moving internet age.”
The movie is directed by Gia Coppola and takes a satirical look at the phenomena of online celebrities - however, it wasn’t to everyone’s taste and according to the Independent, some viewers even left the theatre when it aired at the Venice Film Festival in 2020.
Garfield’s character Link was branded ‘one of the most obnoxious ever’ in a review by IndieWire, where he was also described as ‘the grotesque lovechild of Val Kilmer’s Jim Morrison in The Doors and Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker’.
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Mainstream didn’t fare much better in Variety, where the movie was described as ‘a messy, childish scrawl of a film,’ and Garfield’s character as an ‘unstable young man larking about with friends to almighty obnoxious a**hole ruthlessly obsessed with climbing numbers’.
The Times wrote about Link in even less glowing terms, with the reviewer calling him an ‘absolute spanner’ - it goes on: “He’s the male equivalent of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (think Zooey Deschanel in 500 Days of Summer) and you’ll mostly want to punch him.” Ouch.
While the AV club described Garfield’s character as ‘Jake Paul by way of Jared Leto’s Joker’.
Oh and while we’re on the subject of Jake Paul - he actually makes a cameo, as himself, in the flick, alongside fellow YouTuber Patrick Starrr.
In case the snippets above didn't make it clear, it’ fair to say, Mainstream didn’t exactly set the world on fire following its US release in 2021.
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It has a IMDB rating of just 4.9 and a less-than impressive 33 percent on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, although it does have a slightly higher 43 percent audience score.
Alongside Hawkes and Garfield, Mainstream stars Johnny Knoxville and Jason Schwartzman.
If none of the above has put you off and you fancy giving it a watch, it’s available to buy on Prime Video for £7.99.
Topics: Andrew Garfield, TV and Film
Claire Reid