The perfect, unrated comedy thriller that will help you reach your final state
Author: Robert Skuch Published
If you are sane, healthy, and everything is going well in your life, you may never find yourself being manipulated into joining a cult. Or if you’re like Ansel Roth (Leland Orser) in 2014 Faultyou were so opposed to the idea of cults tearing families apart and destroying lives that you dedicated your life to finding victims and reprogramming them so that they could return to the way they were before they ran away from home.
This is where things get confusing, because what if you still owe a large sum of money to a loan shark publisher and at the same time a desperate family approaches you so that you can reunite them with their estranged daughter? There’s no guarantee you’ll be able to help them, but you’ll probably get the cash you need, put on a great show, walk away relatively unscathed, and move on with your life.
At least that’s what Ansel thought would happen Faultbut his reckless behavior will catch up to him sooner or later.
The dishonest redemption arc of a sad, sad man.
exist FaultAnsel Roth lived a very sad life, shuttling from one cheap hotel to another trying to sell his new book. While his first published work, about deprogramming cult victims so they could return to their old lives, was a huge success, his new book is just a cash grab to make up for the losses from his recent divorce and other life failures.
Although he had trouble selling his new book, he was at least able to get a free room and meal every time he stayed at a hotel or otherwise live in his car. It’s all really sad, but there’s also a sense of entitlement that makes the whole situation incredibly funny, especially when he’s arguing over fraudulent meal tickets and stealing all the towels and remote control batteries from the room he’s about to be kicked out of.
To make matters worse for Ansel, his manager Terry (Jon Gries) not only disowns him because he hasn’t moved any units, but demands that he pay off his past debt within a week or else. As Ansel goes on increasingly pathetic book tours across the country, he even sends a goon, Mick (Lance Reddick), to personally threaten him.
Desperate for cash and concerned that his entire career might just be a joke, Evelyn (Beth Grant) and Paul (Chris Ellis) track down their daughter Claire (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who ran away from home to become a member of The Wrong, an elusive cult that targets innocents. Ansel, in his infinite wisdom, agrees to help her deprogram in order to repay the amount he owes Terry so that he can put all his failures behind him and move on with his life.
The plan started out simple. Ansel, with Evelyn and Paul’s permission, hired actors to stage Claire’s kidnapping. Ansel stays in another seedy motel and starts working with Claire, who doesn’t know her parents are living in the next room, waiting for her breakthrough. Things get more complicated when Claire refuses therapy and Mick unexpectedly shows up to collect the rest of the money Ansel owes Terry.
Control Master Class
Fault If you’ve seen any documentary on the subject, it goes into the exact type of cult-level manipulation you’re familiar with, but subverts expectations every step of the way. Ansel knows all the methods used to decrypt someone, and has had mixed results in the past. He believes he needs to destroy Claire’s spirit and rebuild her from the ground up so she can reintegrate into her family and put her shortcomings behind her.
Claire, on the other hand, has her own ideas about how things should work. She is fiercely stubborn, and her actions, combined with external forces beyond her control, such as the emergence of Terry and Mick, push Ansel into increasingly compromising situations. The constant loss of funds and temporary detours during deprogramming left him sleep-deprived, slowly eroding his resolve and, in many cases, allowing Claire to gain the upper hand.
what is so fascinating Fault It’s just how deep everyone gets themselves in for their own selfish reasons. Ansel needs money. Claire doesn’t want to leave her cult. Her parents want things to go back to the way they were, even if the circumstances of a few years ago no longer suit Claire, now an adult.
To some extent, everyone is manipulating everyone else, and Fault Makes you wonder who the real article is. Half the fun is figuring out who’s cheating on whom, and this sense of distrust and animosity is thrust upon the audience in a way that makes you never want to root for anyone, while also hoping the right side gets what they want.
As of this writing, Fault Stream for free on Tubi.
