The art of independent filmmaking remains to be one of America’s most untouched, true blue forms of art. No room in the budget for any CGI graphics or additional special effects of any sort, so when you’re in the writing process and you intend to fund the movie yourself that’s a necessary something to take into consideration. Because everything, no matter what, traces back to the writing. Acting and directing are both musts, but if you don’t have a great story capable of further execution you’re pretty much screwed from the get-go. The Square is the rare exception to this rule, and it completely caught me off guard. It throws twists at and plays mind games with its viewer, but it’s the individual aspects of the film that synch together so perfectly whereas your movie-going motif is seemingly punched in the gut and the small critic inside of us simply watches in gaping awe.

I went into The Square completely oblivious as to what it really was. Maybe that’s the reason I was so shocked at its truthful realism, because I didn’t know too much about it. Maybe, just maybe, that’s why rare indies such as this knock us down like pinheads. I’d compare it to a blockbuster such as Transformers, but in and of its own The Square is breathtaking. It’s remarkably laid-back and doesn’t worry too much about living up to whatever bar it might be set at. I came, I saw, this movie conquered. That’s it in a nutshell.

Of course there’s more to it than that, though. The Square doesn’t have a very original premise, but consider this: neither did The Wrestler or Crazy Heart. But you know what made those movies shine? The acting. The Square’s on-screen players are so honed at their craft it’s unbelievable that most of their past achievements are at the highest a cameo in the Kate Hudson rom-com Fool’s Gold. They deserve so much more. The real shady character is Raymond Yale, an aging man on the boom of escaping with his mistress Carla and her boyfriend’s felony-driven cash bag. Their plan is to steal the money, set Carla’s home on fire and have her boyfriend think both his girlfriend and his profit nest perished. I can’t help but to relate this movie to the AMC drama Breaking Bad because it’s almost a perfect screen adaptation. No drugs are involved but the formula is still there—the corrupt places sudden wealth can take you. Watching the consequences slowly unfold is at times sickening and during others a sight to behold.

David Roberts as Raymond, igniting a hellfire of right and wrong decisions, is shear perfection. His routine expression of deceit and betrayal to get what he wants prevents The Square from ever becoming self-indulgent. Director Nash Edgerton never reviews Raymond and his mistress Claire as awful people, even if their actions reflect them as such. Each person here has some tie with the money Claire is attempting to kidnap, and what comes with that is their own separate view of the world. By the end their paths tragically clash. We watch in horror at the depths these people go to finish what they started, because by then there’s no way out. Frank Tetaz’s chilling score pops up at every which turn the way Frank the Rabbit did in Donnie Darko.

Like Breaking Bad, The Square studies at-home violence and back-door dealing. That’s what makes both the latter and the former so hauntingly unsettling. To know that this could and is happening anytime, anywhere in your own neighborhood is terrifying. The Square is a madcap drama that sucks you in with compelling authenticity. This is a movie that comes from people who love what they do. We as an audience can only sit back and marvel in exasperation.

(4 1/2 out of 5)

Watch my full review of The Square here!