Dave Made a Maze

2017 comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: When his girlfriend's a way, a guy named Dave makes a cardboard maze in the living room and ends up getting lost in it. His friends have to go in to retrieve him, and it turns out to be a lot bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside.

This Gondry-esque bit of whimsy is not without its problems, but it gets bonus points for being unique. Unique and also frequently mesmerizing. I mean, once they characters enter that maze, this thing really picks up. A keyboard room, a giant head vomiting tissue paper, living origami, decapitation with yarn blood, cute little puppets, insect things, a great optical illusion room, characters randomly turning black and white, a giant intimidating cardboard vagina. The inside of this maze burbles with creative spunk, and each of the myriad of rooms the viewer gets the pleasure of venturing into with these characters look like individual labors of love, so artistically put together with all these bits of cardboard. It's a sight to behold, friends!

I think the above shows my favorite room in the maze, but there really is so much to see. It's endlessly surprising and full of creativity. And that's important because of what that maze represents. I won't share that secret though.

Some of these characters were annoying. Acting was bad, the humor was inconsistent, and this silliness where a character is trying to film a documentary got really annoying. But Dave Made a Maze overcomes its imperfections and is consistently astonishing, whimsically challenging, and very nearly touching in its look at a relationship. It's a very interesting directorial debut from Bill Waterson.