The Studio Recap: Going Full Fincher
As previous episodes of The Studio have made clear, Matt Remick loves movies. With “The Missing Reel,” we learn he also loves film, as in the medium on which movies used to be, and sometimes still are, made. Penned by Peter Huyck, the episode opens with Matt waxing rhapsodic about it, down to the way the grain dances even when the image remains still. “Every frame has so much life to it,” he tells a projectionist (Alan Barinholtz) who he assumes shares his romantic notions about what used to be the only way to make a movie — a tradition he has every intention of keeping alive. But the projectionist isn’t onboard. “Film’s a fucking pain in my ass,” he tells Matt. “With digital, I just push a button.”
For all its fantastic qualities, film has other drawbacks, too. Someone could walk off with an entire reel and make it disappear forever. That problem is soon visited upon Rolling Blackout, an Olivia Wilde–directed noir “set in the world of the Los Angeles solar-panel industry.” Sure, that sounds like a rip-off of Chinatown, as the projectionist observes, but Matt’s pretty excited about the project anyway, even if he’s too cheap to spring for a wrap party. (Shooting on film is expensive!) That makes the possibility of losing a whole reel all the more alarming.
First stop: Wilde. She’s distraught about the loss but offended when Matt suggests someone from the crew, whom she considers family, might have walked off with it. Still, someone must have stolen it. Because Matt doesn’t want word of this disappearance to get out, he takes it upon himself to find it with Sal acting as his sidekick. They have a pretty tight deadline, too. If they don’t find it before the film finishes shooting at the end of the day, it will be reported as missing. After a hug from Wilde, they’re on the case. But Matt’s going to need a jacket to fight the cold and a hat to cover up a bad dye job, additions that make him look as if he’s starring in a noir of his own.
And he kind of is. Only a few self-aware winks keep “The Missing Reel” from turning into a full-on noir parody. Now clad in a trench coat and fedora, Matt provides the classic private-eye voice-over via notes read into his phone. As he tells Sal, he’s just following through on a suggestion made by his therapist, yet he looks like a noir hero and both the moody lighting and score make this the most hard-boiled installment of The Studio to date.
“The Missing Reel” is not a serious episode, or no more serious than its predecessors, but it’s not without stakes. Film is just barely hanging on as an option for the directors who prefer it, and this sort of disaster could be the excuse the industry needs to give up on the medium forever. “You’d be the man who killed film,” Sal tells him, and Matt takes this to heart.
Still, though Matt looks the part of a gumshoe, it’s Sal who seems like a detective. The case plays into a particular area of expertise. He smelled alcohol on Wilde but can’t identify the brand (and he’s very good at identifying liquor brands by scent alone). Surely, this is a clue, right? But before Sal can pursue the lead any further, they’re taken aside by Fred (Andrew Santiago), the camera PA, who asks for a private meeting so he can tell them what he knows.
Essentially, Fred confirms that the reel disappeared after it was loaded in, most likely during a 20-minute stretch when the van transporting it was left unattended. But Fred also reveals Wilde has gone “full Fincher,” making Rolling Blackout star Zac Efron do dozens of takes of a scene in which he puts on a hat. Could Efron be the thief?
Maybe, but Matt’s planned charm offensive doesn’t work on Efron, who receives him coldly because he really wishes they could have a wrap party. And, hey, maybe someone who owns the third Corvette ever made could pony up some money for such a thing? Instead of filling Matt with shame, this well-placed barb just makes him suspicious and prompts him to investigate Efron’s trailer. He finds an envelope full of money, then has to hide when the actor returns. When a costume designer named Evelyn shows up to retrieve the cash, Matt decides only one conclusion can be drawn: She’s “tangled in Zac Efron’s wicked web.”
Hopping into Matt’s classic Corvette, they follow Evelyn first to the Smoke House, then to the Chateau Marmont. Along the way, Sal points out a social-media post that shows a figure with a tattoo near the van from which the reel was stolen. That seems like a legit clue, but Matt’s focused on the Evelyn-Efron theory to the point of sneaking into the hotel, posing as a waiter, and taking a room-service delivery up to Efron’s room. He’s met with an unpleasant surprise: Sal’s there with Efron, and both are attending a secret wrap party from which Matt and Wilde have specifically been excluded.
Efron’s not particularly thrilled that Matt is there, but he’s really concerned when he learns about the missing reel. Meanwhile, Sal’s worried about Matt. The dye job, the classic cars: These seem like typical signs of a midlife crisis or some other worrying development. Matt apologizes for being distant and weird, then spots someone with a tattoo identical to the one Sal saw in the suspicious social-media post. The case is cracked!
Or it would be if his suspect’s ink weren’t a temporary tattoo of the kind worn by everyone playing gang members in Rolling Blackout. The tattoos wear off eventually but can also be scrubbed off with rubbing alcohol. That truly cracks the case. Sal was right that Wilde smelled of alcohol and right again to be puzzled about why he couldn’t nail down the brand. She wore a tattoo for her cameo in the film but then scrubbed it off to distance herself from the photo. Olivia Wilde stole her own film.
Matt and Sal show up just as Wilde is attempting to film the last shot of the movie, and they lay out their case against her: She didn’t like the way the big shoot-out on the reel looked, so she took the film to create an excuse to shoot it again. Wilde denies the accusation, but the fact that she has the reel proves pretty damning. When pressed, she confesses she held on it so she could use the footage of her cameo, but having been caught, she decides to just destroy the whole thing, cameo and all. Matt gives chase, but it’s all for naught. “Forget it, Olivia,” he tells her. “It’s Chinatown. It’s just a rip-off of Chinatown.” (Bookends again.) She tosses it anyway. Happily, Matt ends up saving the day, financing the reshoots by selling his car to Efron and thus making sure he won’t be the man who killed film after all. At least not yet.
And … Action!
• “The director got what she wanted ’cause, in this town, they call the shots.” Every once in a while The Studio features a line of dialogue or a plot detail that doubles as a reminder that it doesn’t quite take place in our universe. Further evidence: the very existence of projects like Rolling Blackout and the drama Sarah Polley is making in the second episode.
• Yes, Alan Barinholtz, who plays the projectionist, is related to Ike Barinholtz. He’s his father. An attorney as well as an actor, the elder Barinholtz has his own busy acting career, including a recent appearance on St. Denis Medical.