Are you in tune with your surroundings? How often in this age of burgeoning self-awareness has that question been asked. The film The Sound of Silence takes that notion to a whole nether level never before considered. Peter Sarsgaard stars as a home tuner who ensures that the noise—however subtle—emitted by various elements in our abodes match our personality, drive and inner peace prospects.
Sarsgaard’s Peter Lucian, an academic with lofty goals of publishing a paper that proves his theory that cities such as New York have a sonic tone that various from neighborhood to neighborhood. Not even borough to borough. Central Park may be a G Major, while the Lower East Side could be an A Minor. It’s a fascinating premise and in the film, it is laid out so succinctly that the viewer will forget that we are being inundated with scholarly speak as Peter works out his potentially groundbreaking work. All the while, he is “tuning” homes and he’s got quite a business.
Lucian has helped dozens upon dozens of folks “tune” their homes and he has a map with the musical key to every neighborhood laid out on the wall where he works and hangs his head at night. Whether it a toaster that is resonating in a key of F, while the refrigerator is firmly extoling the virtues of B- minor. No wonder your life is filled with stress and sleep is hard to come by. He has countless satisfied customers, but one has got him stumped. Ellen Chasen (Rashida Jones), for some reason his fixes aren’t fixing anything. It’s the first time in his entire career that this has occurred, and he will do anything to help her, even if it pushes his comfort zones. Like, he asks to visit her office and let’s just say it is not a place where he finds any semblance of peace.
Collectively, Sarsgaard and Jones make a fascinating, if unusual pair … and that is exactly what this film needs.
Co-writer-director Michael Tyburski (with Ben Nabors) based the film on their short film. It is clear this is a subject matter that is ingrained in the filmmaker’s DNA. The work has the uncanny ability to bring us into Peter’s world and as unorthodox as it is on the surface, it makes perfect sense through his eyes (and ears). This is a topic that not many have explored, the subtle sounds of our cities and homes. The concept works immeasurably due to its scientific back-up given by the collegial visits to Peter’s mentor (Austin Pendleton’s Robert Feinway) and a student that Peter is mentoring, Samuel Diaz (The Grand Budapest Hotel star Tony Revolori.
If there is an antagonist in The Sound of Silence, it arrives in the form of corporate CEO Harold Carlyle, (played brilliantly by Bruce Altman). He wants Peter to come work for him as they integrate personal sound spaces for every individual in the city (and then hopefully the world). It is a world dripping with money. When Harold and Peter first mix, the latter learns something about a patent for a theory he proved fact that the former has monetized, and Peter is history. There is no way he’s going corporate when he can be an academic who has proven something otherworldly about the science of sound and how it can influence our lives in the most unforeseen profound ways.
Sarsgaard has always been an actor I greatly admire. His ability to go from soft sensitiveness to explosive anger is unmatched. Although he never goes full title in the anger department (even though there are times he should), he gives us a performance that on the surface is a loner of a man who is seeking answers in the firm realm of science. By the conclusion, the actor has given us a characterization of someone who is simply filling a void internally and how that is done varies by what it is that stimulates him at the time. It’s a wonderful turn by the actor and one that deserves to be seen by the masses. No one else working today could have captured Peter the way that Sarsgaard does.
Jones is a treasure. Her uncertainty about Peter and what he is doing in her apartment is us. At one point when he lays on her bed, she finds it unusually, a little uncomfortable, but she lets it happen because there is something in Peter that makes her believe that what he is doing will help aide her unbridled restlessness. The actress has a character arc that is one she must have thanked the scriptwriting Gods when she received it. She ever so slowly goes from skeptic to believer to friend of Peter who wants nothing but the best for him. From his standpoint, he wants to solve her problems with his scientific and academic expertise but fails to see that sometimes she just wants someone to listen to her and break the silence that permeates her life.
Tyburski puts together his film in the most honestly humble of ways. What is the most striking about it is (surprise!) its sound mixing and sound design. For most of the film, when Peter is studying sound, it is all we hear. He has his noise cancelling headphones on, we hear nothing. He takes one ear off, and we hear a little. Those come off all together and we hear everything. It’s a bold choice and for this particular picture, is impeccably done.
The Sound of Silence is slow, for that there is no question. But its snail’s pace befits the lifestyle of the lead and co-lead. Stick with it throughout because it is a character lesson of a few of the souls who inhabit the city that doesn’t sleep. After all, many of Peter’s clients come to see him because they are having trouble sleeping themselves. The conclusion of the film is more than worth the wait to get there. It is brilliant, in fact. I almost ran for a conductor’s baton—see it, you’ll know what I mean.
Overall, the film builds to a stunning realization that the titular phrase is not an oxymoron. There is firmly a science of sound and therefore it is indisputable that there is The Sound of Silence.
Grade: B+