In the canon of films about theater, All About Eve (1950) takes center stage, with films like Opening Night (1977) and All That Jazz (1979) in contention for second billing. Still, darker modern iterations like Black Swan (2010) and Birdman (2014) lurk in the microgenre’s backstage shadows. Now hitting the ground running on the festival circuit, there’s a new addition to the canon: The Debut, the delightfully zany third feature from director Jesse Eisenberg.

Mona (Julianne Moore) is a background character in her own life. Her family and friends discard her as the wallpaper of their own stories. She’s all but accepted it until, one day, Mona decides to try out for a local community theater production. Immediately swept up in the magic of it all, Mona is devastated to learn she didn’t get the part after visiting the director, Jerry (Paul Giamatti), late one night. Much like Opening Night’s sinister death, which spins Gena Rowlands’ character into psychological turmoil, this late-night encounter marks a sharp shift. It marks the end of Mona’s former self. After Jerry is forced to give Mona the part a few weeks before the show opens, she’s given permission to spiral into her own form of madness: method acting.

Moore is no stranger to this scene, with Vanya on 42nd Street (1994) marking one of her first major roles. While Eisenberg isn’t channeling Chekhov or Shakespeare in his musical-within-a-movie, “Nosy Neighbors,” The Debut proves to be a vehicle to showcase Moore’s immense talent. Her range is on full display as Mona transforms from a quiet extra in her own life to a maniacal scene-stealer, clinging to the spotlight like a moth to a lamp. Her performance most resembles her former character Carol from Safe (1995). Like Carol, what starts as a relatively healthy obsession quickly turns into self-destruction, propelling Mona into an uncanny valley of depersonalization. Swapping the hazmat suits for a Liza Minnelli-esque makeover, Mona’s situation is scarier because it’s driven by passion rather than fear. It’s not an exaggeration of a phobia but a marginal satire of many actors’ Icarus careers.

Eisenberg deftly cuts the story’s more demented aspects with heaps of whimsy, comedy, and kitsch — as one would expect from a movie about a community theater’s production of a musical. “Nosy Neighbors” satirizes your typical big-city, apartment-dwelling romantic musical. It’s so interchangeable with the kind of plays you’d find at many community theaters that Eisenberg doesn’t even bother giving his characters names, with Halle Bailey landing the lead role of “Girl in 4F.” 

During the post-film Q&A at TIFF, when asked where the idea for a fake play came from, Eisenberg threw his signature self-deprecating humor back at the audience, claiming “Nosy Neighbors” is simply the full extent of his ability to create a musical. While this may be true, it’s the perfect banal mechanism to launch Mona’s unhinged trajectory. Eisenberg’s musical-within-a-movie creates an unforgettable comedic contrast between the frivolous stage production and the absurdity of Mona’s actions.

The Debut walks a tonal tightrope between sincerity and satire. Eisenberg’s love for theater is obvious; at the same time, he recognizes the bizarre elements that make it tick. His literal equation of theater actors to circus performers — banana-fueled rehearsals, Mona’s diet of peanuts and a mysterious liquor called “monkey blood” — is one example of Eisenberg coyly tugging at the art form’s loose threads. He artificially infuses melodrama and seriousness with extreme zooms and dramatic camerawork. An intense scene in which Jerry pushes Mona to find the truth in her character of Miss Danielle looks and feels like something from Whiplash (2014), but the hilarity of Moore’s delivery and Eisenberg’s script immediately bring us back down to this goofy universe they’ve created. 

Luckily, The Debut never feels like tonal whiplash. It strikes more of a perfect balance between admiration and admonishment for the art of acting, craftily reminding the Monas of the world that “there are no small parts.”

Review Courtesy of Kasey Dunifer

Feature image credit to TIFF