Part noir thriller and part punky comic-book subcult story, this Canadian-made debut from writer-director Avan Jogia is a bit hit and miss but impressive all the same. Credit is due as much to lead Hayley Law, better known as a recording artist, who has a knack for deadpan line delivery and a tremendous screen presence.
Law plays Mouse, a young graphic artist who draws pornographic stories for a very niche indie comic book market. It’s not making her a lot of money so she also performs in a shady burlesque-strip club run by strict but protective matriarch Mama (Famke Janssen, adding some serious horsepower to the ensemble). Mouse has a weird platonic bond with Ugly (Keith Powers), whose name is an obvious misnomer. He follows her around all the time and is almost ignored by everyone else, to the point where I was expecting his function to be a Fight Club-style projection device, but it turns out he is real.
