Unfolding through a warped time-frame, with flashbacks and flashes forward creating a disorienting and initially confusing effect, Mend follows a small group of young adults: Wesley, (Jay Sullivan) Laura (Nancy Mitchell - a standout) Peter (Scott Hernandez) and Samantha (Anna Nordeen) as they maneuver through the trials and tribulations of finding work, following their dreams, answering Love's call, and dealing with death, depression and dope (the kind of dope pedaled by pharmaceutical companies, that is).

Actually, our first tip-off that Mend is up to something unusual comes from the artwork. On the DVD a happy smiling couple cavorts in autumn sunlight. Other smiling couples decorate the menu screens. None of which appear in the actual movie. These folks mimic and mock big-pharma advertising, and point out Mend's thesis - sometimes bad reality might be better than medicated un-reality. Especially when that medication comes from an outfit more concerned with profits than clinical trials.

As Mend progresses, what first seems like amateur, stilted acting smoothes out, moving its fractured storyline through the paces from annoying to compelling and finally emotionally resonant. By brief (about 70 minutes) run-time's close you may find yourself wanting to turn around and watch the entire thing again, sifting for further details with more educated fingers.

This is a very quirky blend, and that very quirkiness may be what saves Mend from becoming an extremely pretentious exercise in high-concept style. Its intimate scale and extremely judicious doling out of facts forces you to be on your toes. There's a lot of explaining going on, but the explanations are fleshed out by flashbacks, so instead of being a talky bore, the movie constantly jerks us back and forth in time, providing brief glimpses into the most fascinating subject - other people's lives. What's talked about engages on multiple levels; on one level is interest in everyday minutiae - how's work, who got fired, she's earning what? - it's that type of stuff; deeper still is the realization that such talk only hints at a darker underbelly, and sublimated motivations. Finally we come to understand that as each color fills in the picture painted represents a dimly lit, subjective reality, one of beauty and tragedy.

Lots of indie releases are misfires - low budgets, poor acting and overly earnest writers/directors can be a deadly blend, but Mend's audacious, fractured vision works like a weird tumbler, with random notches slowly clicking in turn, ultimately cracking open a door behind which hearts are breaking. It's an effective, darkly satiric mind-bender on a budget.

The DVD

Video:
The flip side of the successful indie coin is that some movies just don't look that good. Maybe you'd be suspicious of a low budget movie that looks fantastic, but Mend is not that movie. Presented in widescreen format for 16 x 9 televisions, Mend displays a grocery list of image problems - most of which can be shoehorned into some sort of 'artistic vision' category. They certainly add a sense of urgent surrealism. At any rate, an extremely grainy picture touts washed-out 'anti-drug use PSA' colors, with lots of mosquito noise speckling in the backgrounds, posterizing of dark areas, (none of which are very deep) plenty of aliasing and weird blurriness around the borders of the image. This last defect is probably wholly intentional, but you never know. Lighting is also generally pretty flat, also probably a stylistic choice.

Sound:
Our oldie moldie screener (sorry for the delay, Reel Indies!) comes sans packaging, so I'm guessing that Mend is presented in Dolby Digital Stereo. The audio track features lots of haunting music, which takes center-stage when necessary, and fades nicely into the background during dialog and voiceovers. All dialog is clear and easy to understand, though suffers slightly as it seems to be mostly recorded from room-sound, ending up a bit hollow sounding. Occasional 'trippy' voiceovers point up the fractured reality and make nice use of stereo mixing.

Extras:
Mend boasts a decent selection of extras. For starters we get 16 minutes of Trailers for seven other Reel Indies films. Additionally, there are three Original Trailers for Mend, including a teaser and extended teaser trailer. On The Mend is a 17-plus minute featurette with talking head cast and crew interviews as well as behind the scenes footage and clips from the movie. It's a surprisingly packed featurette - honest, sincere and earnest in the same fashion as the movie itself. Portraits is a six minute look at actor Jay Sullivan's (Wesley) photography. He spent time while working on the movie taking portraits of cast and crew. After talking about the project we're treated to the best shots of principal actors and crew. Screen Tests run over four minutes and feature actors trying out for varying roles, whether they ended up in those parts or not. Aside from the actors reading from scripts, the filming and quality of these screen tests is similar to the finished product. Two Deleted Scenes flesh out a bit the origins of the movie's pivotal relationship. Oddly, these scenes (about four minutes totaled) are in a different color-scheme from the rest of the movie. Lastly, two four-plus minute Music Videos will entertain you from wildly different arenas. The first is a Casio-influenced pop number with a giant dancing pill, the second a gritty hip-hop number from an artist associated with the production.

Final Thoughts:
Mend's warped, time-bending look at the lives of four young adults as they struggle to find themselves within a haze of uncertainty, death, pain, depression and difficult love presents an engaging and delightful challenge. Despite a low budget and some occasionally shaky performances, Mend skillfully weaves a number of dark plots together in a manner that never seems self-conscious or pretentious. It's a movie from the 'where did this come from?' file that's well worth your time. Recommended.

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