All Is Vanity: a formally flexible fashion flick

Strange things are afoot over the course of a small-scale fashion shoot in this tightly contained feature from debut writer-director Marcos Mereles. In an artful industrial loft somewhere in London, photographer Ben (Sid Phoenix) and intern Luke (James Aroussi) are preparing for a session about which neither is particularly excited, with the former distracting himself by complaining and throwing his weight around and the latter balancing professional eagerness with healthy scepticism. The mood isn’t notably lifted by the arrival of make-up artist Alessandra (Rosie Steel), who has seen it all before, and model Eve (Isabelle Bonfrer), who has reservations of her own.

Low-level media-world discontent plays out through snarky exchanges, with egos and power dynamics to the fore, punctuated by occasional glimmers of vulnerability. The material situation, meanwhile, is sporadically disrupted by things like power cuts and the discovery of a weapon. For rather convoluted reasons, the four of them stay overnight at the location, at which point things grow mysterious, with characters apparently taken unwell or going missing. Later, the film takes a turn for the meta-cinematic, engaging with some of the logistical and emotional terrain that comes with filmmaking and artistry in general. Not long after that, it moves into even weirder, genre-inflected territory.

There’s an inevitably theatrical feel to a story confined to a single (mostly) interior setting and imbued with a general air of vaguely Pinteresque menace, though DoP Murat Ersahin establishes a strong visual sense of a naturally lit enclosed environment. Exchanges play out through almost schematic permutations of character combinations, illuminating different aspects of their motivations; Phoenix’s obnoxious photographer bounces off Aroussi’s naïve intern in enjoyably ghastly ways, for instance, while deploying a more conspiratorial, world-weary mien with Steel’s make-up artist, a fellow veteran. The cast do a nice job of conveying characters who go through various inflections, though they are sometimes hampered by an overall sameness of tone and dialogue that can feel forced. As it progresses, All Is Vanity radically shifts the terms of its narrative and genre expectations – but the overall dynamics of character expression and interaction do not undergo such substantial development.

The high-level gear shifts at the level of story and form give the production the feeling of an ambitious exercise: what if this chamber piece became an industry satire, and what if that became a paranormal puzzle box? It’s to its credit that it manages these manoeuvres in a brief running time without coming off the rails, even if dramatically and philosophically it bites off more than it can chew.

► All Is Vanity is in UK cinemas from tomorrow.