7/10
The first of my 11 films at the Fantasia Festival this year was Quentin "Mr. Oizo" Dupieux's debut film about a murderous tire. Last year the first movie I saw at the festival was La Antena, a silent feature film from Argentina that I thought would have worked better as a short. Rubber gave me the exact same vibe - the idea of a tire stalking and killing insects, then birds and rabbits, then people, is funny at first but becomes increasingly one-note as the movie wears on. Stephen Spinella as the surrealist sherriff in charge of tracking down the tire is the best part. There's also a subplot involving a bunch of characters watching "the movie" afar through binoculars that makes for some nice self-referential humor, but it can also come off distractingly smug, particularly for a debut film. There's a great monologue given by the sheriff to open the movie, but when it's shown again from a different camera angle during the closing credits, you get the nagging suspicion that Dupieux is a bit too proud of himself and his writing abilities. A fun watch with some laugh-out-loud moments, but not without its flaws.
