Directed by Rob Schroeder
Written by Conor Stechschulte, based on his graphic novel
Starring Vincent Kartheiser, Tunde Adebimpe, Bob Stephenson, Breeda Wool
Unrated
1 hour 43 minutes

by Audrey Callerstrom, Staff Writer

From its very first scene, Ultrasound feels like a film that was completed a while ago and sat on the shelf. Its biggest star is probably Vincent Kartheiser from Mad Men, a show which wrapped in 2015. Which isn’t to say that a lead’s star power (or lack thereof) is an immediate indicator of how good a film is (or isn’t). The pacing is off, the script feels unedited. Characters are incidental and two-dimensional. Ultrasound is based on a graphic novel, but you would never guess from the look and feel of it. It looks gray and washed-out. Only a handful of scenes take place in a dark, sterile lab, but the whole film looks like that throughout; blah and permanently overcast.

Ultrasound begins with a cliché, which would be acceptable, if the film did something fresh with it, but it doesn’t. A man named Glen (Kartheiser) is stranded on the side of the road in a rainstorm after his tire blows out. He walks to a nearby house where Arthur (character actor Bob Stephenson) lives with his young wife Cindy (Chelsea Lopez). As you would expect, there are no repair shops open this time of night and the nearest motel is several miles away. Arthur begs Glen to stay with him for the night. Their conversation feels stilted and unnatural, and not in a cryptic way. Within hours of meeting, Glen and Arthur are talking like old buds. Arthur suggests that Glen sleep with his wife, like Indecent Proposal without the promise of money.

The film abruptly jumps to a woman (Rainey Qualley, sister of Margaret, daughter of Andie MacDowell) who may be pregnant and having an affair with a conservative politician (Chris Gartin). It’s underdeveloped and goes nowhere. The Glen/Arthur/Cindy story is the “A” plot, a researcher (Breeda Wool), grappling with the ethics of a project is the “B” plot, and the politician plot is “C.” They all fall flat, but the “C” plot seems like it may have had more potential. How all the stories tie together is confusing, and figuring it out is an arduous task because it’s hard to stay invested in anything that is happening. Each character feels like a pawn in the overall plot. Behind it all is a sort of puppeteer, a hypnotist, assigned to brainwash people into events they think are happening, pregnancies that may or may not be real. The researcher alludes to having PTSD and having studied trauma, which is why she’s onboard with this vague research project which involves distorting memory. Her boss (Tunde Adebimpe, of Rachel Getting Married and lead singer of TV on the Radio) dismisses her concerns with a vague response.

At one point a character asks, “how does one thing have anything to do with the other?” It’s something the movie can’t figure out. Even if there is a clear tie between all the stories, the script doesn’t particularly care about any one character. At any point a character on screen could be shot and we’d be like, “okay.” The soundtrack is obnoxious, using ticking, sizzling, and clicking sounds to build tension out of nothing. Breeda Wool as the researcher gives the most nuanced performance. Everyone else kind of does the best they can with the one-sentence description for their character it seems they received. Maybe there was a grander meaning in the source material about memory, perception, and manipulation, but it doesn’t come through in this flawed and dull film.

See all of our Tribeca 2021 coverage here.