VA little compulsive, but still a nice idea for a romance the movie Inside the Rain puts you in the shoes of a bipolar college student. Nicely acted by Aaron Fisher he works the three roles that include director and writer as well. It’s common with most indies to either direct their own movie and it this case it may have been a bit too much for Fisher as like some of his dialogue he gets “recklessly extravagant” with it. If you like comedies that have a story that involves a measure of patience until the final blow, then this one will work for you.
Ben Glass (Aaron Fisher) has a disability, actually many of them. He has OCD to being Bi-Polar and everything in between. Well almost everything as he isn’t a psychopath. His mother Nancy (Catherine Curtin) and father David Glass (Paul Schulze) are concerned about his behavior, but still think he’s okay to be in society and taking filmmaking at a college. However, when we meet Ben he’s just transferred to a new college where the students don’t know of his psychological incongruities. What he wants most out of college is a degree in the arts, specifically a movie career.
At his first film class he gets the perfect assignment, making a short movie about something that has happened in his life. That evening he attends a party at which he meets Daisy (Kate Claire McGrath) who is in his film class. Between the booze and maybe some pills, Daisy drags Ben off to her dorm room and they have wild sex the rest of the night. In the morning he awakens in her bed and she shoves him out the door. When he gets a note that he’s not for her, Ben goes off the deep end overdosing on his many pills.
The film goes on from the first 10 minutes described above as Aaron Fisher shows Ben dealing with his Psychiatrist Dr. Holloway (Rosie Perez) and getting his first strike with the Dean of the college. As the film progresses we find out a lot about Ben and his unstable life, and then strike 2, expulsion, where he decides to use his film class assignment in a defense case against the school. Yup, pulling in every dime he can get through GoFundMe he makes a film about his interlude with Daisy to prove it caused his breakdown.
I like Ellen Toland in the role of Emma Taylor the stripper call girl who finds her way into Ben’s heart and stars with him in his movie as Daisy. She’s a new refreshing face in the movie business and very talented. If noticed by some big talent agency she could make film a good career. Lots of luck to her and I hope to get to review her next performance.
While the premise is quite original by what I have checked, it’s the tone of the film and Ben’s negative social wit that makes it a downer. In the role of Ben, Fisher shows how he goes through a lot of changes, especially evading his psychiatrist’s remedies for keeping himself within society’s “normal”. When he makes a deal with Montgomery Pennington (played by Eric Roberts) to produce his movie as a big screen life experience, he lets Inside the Rain get out of control and it wanders a bit too much. Here’s where his acting suffers most and much like the illness he’s acting out, it’s not funny anymore. Some of the reasons for his actions here is the filmmaker’s statement that his film is “based on his own life”.
Inside the Rain has not been rated by the MPAA, but contains rude language, explicit sex, nudity, and drug use.
FINAL ANALYSIS: An okay rom-com that may be worth the watch as there’s nothing like it out there (2 out of 5 Stars)
Additional Film Information:
Cast: Rosie Perez, Eric Roberts, Aaron Fisher, Ellen Toland, Catherine Curtin, Paul Schulze, Donnell Rawlings, Rita Raider, Natalie Carter
Directed and written by: Aaron Fisher
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
MPAA Rating: Not Rated, language, explicit sex, nudity, drug use
Running Time: 1 hr. 30 min,
Opening Date: March 13, 2020
Distributed by: Act 13
Released in: Theaters
Writer, critic, film editor John Delia, Sr. has been on all sides of the movie business from publications to film making. He has worked as a film critic with ACED Magazine for more than 20 years and other publications for a total of 40 years. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Florida. John is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association and Critics Association of Central Florida Send John a message at jdelia@acedmagazine.com
