Ben Wheatley's impish in-joke is almost too quirky for its own good, but it's also so outlandish and inventive that it's hard not to be swept away by the wild swings.
Shot in secret with camcorders, iPhones, Go Pros and an endless amount of manic energy, Bulk has all the hallmarks of a student film gone wild. There are only four cast members, the sets are whatever the rented apartment contains, and the effects are a mixture of hand drawn elements and shoddy miniatures. All the dialog was recorded after filming, as the location couldn't accommodate a sound crew. It gives the film an even more ethereal and dreamlike feel.
The plot is a jumble of ideas that all take turns winking at the audience. Imagine if someone took elements of 12 Monkeys, Looper, Primer, and The Wrong Man and put them in a Becket play and you'll have an inkling of the tone. Sam Riley plays Corey Harlan, who wakes up in the backseat of a car driven by Sessler (Noah Taylor). He's not quite a captive, but he can't remember how he got there, either. All Harlan knows is they're going to meet with Aclima (Alexandra Maria Lara), and the situation is urgent. It may have also happened before, perhaps even hundreds of times.
At multiple times, Wheatley breaks the fourth wall to directly address viewers about the absurdity they're watching. The characters comment on the runtime, we see the filmmakers at work, an unseen narrator (Bill Nighy) tells us not to worry about all of it. Your enjoyment of the film hinges entirely on how much you can stomach this kind of self-awareness.
On paper, Bulk can sound extremely smug and navel gazing, like a director wanting to drive off their audience with bizarre antics that are entertaining only to them. Luckily, that isn't the case with Bulk, which is weirdly accessible even at its most baffling moments.
Riley, Lara, and Taylor are superb and entirely in tune with their material. They effortlessly flip between genre stylings, delivering straight faced noir paranoia and broad theater readings with ease. It genuinely feels like getting a glimpse of actors warming up and letting loose in finding new ways to toy with their craft. Luckily, Wheatley never lets this get out of hand, and he's always there to guide the plot along just when it feels too self-indulgent.
But it does lead to some magical moments. One of them, featuring Taylor in a post-apocalyptic scenario in some distant alternate future, has the kind manic energy you get around a campfire, where talented people riff on the same material in their own unique ways. It's strangely intimate, even though, or perhaps exactly because we can see the seams of the stage and props.
At 90 minutes, Bulk could do with a bit of trimming. It sags just around the halfway point and takes a little too long to wrap things up. At times, it explains itself when it really shouldn't. By the time we get into a longer exposition dump, the audience is already in on the gag or they've long since left the theater.
I'm in the former camp. While the first ten to fifteen minutes are an adjustment period, Bulk is so charming and whimsical that it's hard to resist. I'm not sure it will ever find mass appeal, and I don't think Wheatley even intends it to. This is the kind of cult film in the making that will find its people through word of mouth. With everyone excitedly whispering bits and pieces of its non-linear narrative to others, followed by an intense declaration of: "You gotta see it!"
It's a joyous showcase of what imagination, talent, and a sheer lack of fucks given can achieve.
