Results – Review

Guy Pearce is one of our greatest actors; proving himself a chameleon across a dizzying range of genres and scaling budgets of different sizes, he consistently remains an impeccable focus of complex morality at the centre of his films. As for Cobie Smulders, she’s managed to do everything her way, right through TV and even surviving the colossal task of being a Marvel acolyte. And Kevin Corrigan? He’s the smooth-talking face of a thousand comedies and dark dramas, bringing a psychological heft to everything he’s done. Why is it then, that with these three incredible leads, Results ends up as a colossal misfire?

Trevor (Pearce) runs a gym with an ironclad devotion to his philosophy on life. Kat (Smulders) is one of his best employees, using her sharp-edged personality to get inside her clients’ heads and make them push that bit further. Their lives are sent spinning into the ether when they encounter Danny (Corrigan), a newly rich bachelor who mopes about his mansion, strumming his expensive guitar and with a half-baked intent on getting fit. Following a romantic misunderstanding with Kat, his designated coach, he decides to get in touch with his ex-wife; Kat leaves her job, and attempts to find that magical ingredient that will make her an ‘adult’; and Trevor continues with growing his business to the size he wants it to be. This should present plenty of fat, dramatically speaking, to sink your teeth into; however, Results is as bare-bones as they come. Thematically, there’s nothing tying these very different characters together in a significant way; they just seem to appear on the same pages on the same screenplay now and again. Each arc is severely underbaked, and most importantly, the relationships between them feel entirely forced: Kat, while by definition is at a loose end, changes tone at the drop of a hat, while Danny is never given more room to breathe than an imposed ‘weird rich guy’ mode – which would be great, if that was explored to any extent whatsoever. Trevor proves the most nuanced here, largely thanks to Pearce’s dog-eyed, empathetic performance; he’s a mess of contradictions, and beautifully so – but even he gets bogged down by the myriad number of inane things the screenplay requires him to do.

Results could have been a tender little comedy that was about a trio of very different people all trying to get through life, and finding something to call their own. But that is entirely forsaken, thanks to direction that never decides on a tone to settle into, and writing that destroys its characters before they get a chance to become interesting. Even the cinematography has nothing to offer on a purely aesthetic level, each dull frame a symbolic shrug, as if to suggest the movie wasn’t even worth being shot. There is relief in the performances, which happens with most other bad movies – but even they can’t stop this indecisive mess from taking on some kind of shape.

Results is in cinemas May 29. Check out our interview with the director, Andrew Bujalski, here.