Bernhard Wenger’s feature debut begins completely out of context as a golf cart is engulfed in flames. Two people run into frame unleashing fire extinguishers until the blaze is out and golfers slowly walk over commending the duo on a heroic job well done.
We will soon learn the man is Matthias (Albrecht Schuch, All Quiet on the Western Front, System Crasher) and he works for a company called My Companion, not your regular ‘friend for hire’ agency headed by his boss and friend David (Anton Noori). Matthias fulfils the needs, wants and desires of complete strangers, whether putting out inexplicable golf fires, attending outdoor concerts with older women or posing as the pilot father of a small child, moustachioed Matthias is the star of the company, his success evident in the glowing reviews he receives for his “work” and obvious wealth symbolised by the immaculate house he shares with girlfriend Sophia (Julia Franz Richter).
The problem is Matthias is so good at his job that he ceases to exist beyond a surface level in everyday life, he needs cueing up for everything, when to speak, when to appear sympathetic and when to act. Everything is a construct and performative and Sophia has had enough – “You don’t seem real anymore” – and leaves him. What follows is an existential calamity onscreen. The male in crisis here is handsome, polite, patient, considerate, professionally adept and yet socially inept it is laugh-out-loud hilarious and so cringeworthy, the whole body flinches, also a little heart breaking. Matthias is played to perfection by Schuch whose comic timing is sublime made all the more inviting by Albin Widner’s pristine cinematography, visual humour coolly framed and aesthetically pleasing.
Wenger’s assured and absurdist satire takes a swipe at corporation and capitalism. The unpredictability of technology beautifully depicted during the scene when Alexa fails to understand his request for a specific song and declares it will chose a song for him and decides upon ‘Clap Your Hands’ which, of course, interferes with the electricity and clap-activated overhead lights.
Here, the world is a microcosm and life is just one long performance while posing “serious” questions about what constitutes as art – if that happens to be a naked man dousing himself in paint and throwing himself head first into a blank canvas on stage, then fill your boots. To watch the almost-perfect albeit passive man – which in itself is a breath of fresh air from, what feels like, the multitude(s) of male toxicity onscreen – regress and slowly unravel is heart-stinging and, though it’s kind of mean, a laugh-out-loud joy in a film that is tonally perfect from that opening sequence on the green. The dénouement of which is *chef’s kiss*.
Peacock, visually, is reminiscent of Joachim Trier’s work – complete with a Norwegian love interest – shot through with the dead-pan sensibility associated with other Scandi cinema specifically early Östlund or even Lanthimos (when there was a Greek ‘weird’ Wave stirring). Though, by the end, it feels as excruciating (and amusing) as something like Toni Erdmann (2016), whereby the lead is resigned to a specific way of life but then experiences a rebirth, of sorts, which presents a whole new approach to navigating the world.
Matthias can be a your hero, companion, a son, everything for you… but just not as himself.
The Framing Device 