Director Yalan Hu’s independent feature “Doll It Up” is a 7-minute short focusing its lens on love, relationships, and mankind’s — or in this case just man’s — insatiable need to always thirst for something better. It has the right pieces, namely a comedic concept (a man who is married to a sex doll grows tired of the stale marriage and gets a new, sexier doll), as well as earnest attempts at social satire. But the basic problem here is the film tires to balance itself precariously between comedy and drama, and sheds some of its deeper treasure due to its length — which in this case is simply too short.
That “Doll It Up” has already won several awards at film festivals — most of them for comedies and one for editing — show its heart is in the right place. It’s also not raunchy, which a lazier film could have easily been, and manages its hand at making a feature starring really only one human actor and a couple of sex dolls. It’s filmed crisply and simply, its better parts highlighted by pleasing cinematography and its soundtrack by Nathaniel Price. It just lacks something; and it’s sometimes a little hard to piece apart as to what that something is.
The main star of the film is a man named Gunther, played well by film and stage actor Timothy Cox. Gunther is married to a sex doll named Natalie, and the film opens by showing Gunther at a dinner table, eating a nice dinner, narrating to the camera — and to Natalie — as to what has gone awry with the marriage. She’s not the same girl he used to know…things are not as exciting as they once were…you know, the normal things people think about relationships as they become less extraordinary and more ordinary, losing sight often as to how special that can truly be.
Without too much ado, Gunther — after an unsatisfying sexual experience — gets a new sex doll (she’s unnamed, curiously), to put the spice back in his life he so sorely needs. However, when things go awry with this new doll (although the plot is given away on the IMDb description, I will not give it away here), Gunther finds that reclaiming his old life — and wife — a seemingly impossible task.
What is disappointing about “Doll It Up,” is that it takes a good concept (no, not of sex dolls, but of love, and our ability to never be satisfied) and doesn’t do a lot to develop it. It’s also filmed in a way that often makes it hard to distinguish its symbolic plot from reality. For instance, in 2013’s wonderful “Her,” its protagonist falls in love with an operating system from a futuristic computer he has purchased, lessons of love, relationships, and personal introspection gleaned through its clever cinematography. There’s no attempt at satire or poking fun — simply a representation of a real-life emotions augmented to give the film a bizarre feeling while making us think.
In “Doll It Up,” however, there’s a scene where Gunther buys a new doll, has it brought to his house by a delivery man (Devin Craig), who remarks, knowingly, “got some good stuff in there, huh?” — which takes the film out of its specific reality and makes it a point to call out its protagonist for being bizarre or different. Gunther shakes off the comment; but one has to wonder if director/writer Hu wants us to feel sorry for Gunther, get lost in her story, or both.
“Doll It Up” also seems to leave a lot to be desired in the department of character development, leaving us to wonder much about Gunther’s personality, drives, and desires. Cox imbues him with a sort of peculiarity which shifts between kind, frustrated, regretful, and angry — all within the film’s 7-minute run. And while I get that the point of the film is about learning to appreciate what you’ve got, à la “Click” or “It’s a Wonderful Life,” it might have been helpful to give Gunther a personal history that better defines him, rather than leaving us with the blank slate the film ultimately does. Cox does his best with the material he’s left to work with, but feels shortchanged here.
Lastly, there’s the film’s hesitation between deciding if it is an out-and-out comedy or an introspective drama that blurs the proceedings further. There’s earnest attempts at humor (such a scene where Gunther fights with another man over a garbage can to take his old wife — who he has thrown out — back), which are intercut with some dramatic pondering and introspection. It’s here the film’s short length becomes apparent. Instead of being able to take the time to make us feel the film’s deeper points, Hu’s only option is to tell us what we’ve seen rather than show us.
At the end of the day, “Doll It Up” is solid attempt at an indie feature that regretfully fails to measure up. It has a good production, pleasing cinematography, and solid acting by Cox, but gets lost amidst some of its weaker points. An outright comedy may have served its vision better, but in Hu’s first directorial effort, we see a vision and potential that may have simply been yet to be delivered.
