I’m one of those strange creatures who likes sometimes being able to head into a cinema to watch a film without that much knowledge about or expectations for it. Aside from the poster, which doesn’t give that much away, I knew nothing about Lapsis. While it is a novel and intriguing concept that asks some difficult but necessary questions of our society and culture, the film needed a firmer direction for its narrative drive, characters and its societal critique. 

 

In a parallel present, delivery man Ray Tincelli is struggling to support himself and his ailing younger brother. After a series of two-bit hustles and unsuccessful swindles, Ray takes a job in a strange new realm of the gig economy: trekking deep into the forest, pulling cable over miles of terrain to connect large, metal cubes that link together the new quantum trading market. As he gets pulled deeper into the zone, he encounters growing hostility and the threat of robot cablers, and must choose to either help his fellow workers or to get rich and get out.

 

Lapsis is an allegory for our time. Everything from the gig economy to the environment is critiqued throughout this tale. The mysterious premise of the Quantum technology with its hints and winks of sinister, corporate overtones of a cover up along with the alternate world that director Noah Hutton has created grabs the attention of the audience from the very first frame.

 

But it’s the delivery of that premise that initially piqued my interest in the first half of the film that doesn’t quite live up to its promise during its last half which also has a rushed, seemingly incomplete ending. It appears as if the strong direction given to the world building and narrative proposition of the film at the beginning becomes quite loose in the second half of the film. 

 

That being said the ensemble cast of generally unknown and no descript actors are superbly led by the everyman yet slightly enigmatic Dean Imperial who portrays Ray; a kinda low key harmless gangster type. Hopefully we will see more of Imperial on our screens.  

 

While it is a novel and intriguing concept that asks some difficult but necessary questions of our society and culture, Lapsis needed a firmer direction for its narrative drive, characters and its societal critique.