While ‘Peacock’ May Feel Like Science Fiction, Filmmaker Bernhard Wanger’s Debut Feature Is of the Present

The debut feature from Austrian filmmaker Bernhard Wanger, “Peacock,” has, at its core, a premise that seems to place it at a near point in the future. Perhaps it’s the streamlined settings in which much of the action takes place or the overall tenor of the proceedings, a kind of wheedling satire reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” (1971). “Peacock” isn’t as provocative or violent as all that, but the movie does cultivate its own dry sense of outrage.Mr. Wanger’s picture takes place in the here-and-now, though its premise will seem like science fiction to a lot of us: making a career as a professional friend. Like many quixotic ventures, the rent-a-friend industry began in Japan where lonely men and women could, for a fee, engage in conversation over lunch or attend a concert with, if not a like-mind, then a kind soul. Professional mourners we’ve had since antiquity — a duty that contemporary professional friends can also accommodate.Articles about the phenomenon are quick to distinguish the trade from prostitution or therapy, arguing that it serves a distinct social need — particularly in an age when so much of life takes place on screens. Mr. Wanger did his legwork, traveling to Japan and investigating how agencies provide not only solace to alienated individuals but camera-friendly ballast for those eager “to improve your public image or to manipulate someone.” An undercurrent of market skepticism feeds into “Peacock,” but Mr. Wanger’s movie casts a wider net, being a free-ranging social satire predicated on the doubts harbored by a lone man. Matthias (Albrecht Schuch) is not only a professional friend working for a venture dubbed My Companion: He owns the place along with his business partner and friend, David (Anton Noori). Albrecht Schuch, center, in ‘Peacock.’ Via OscilloscopeThe outfit seems to be doing well providing company for those with emotional needs and, of course, discretionary income. But what can it mean when the opening scene has Matthias brandishing a fire extinguisher and applying it to a golf cart that is, for some reason, dramatically ablaze along a manicured fairway?A dumpster on fire would have been too obvious, but a tone has been set — unsettling, quirky, and a tad threatening. We see Matthias at work with his clients: attending a posh concert of some avant-gardish music with an attractive woman; having dinner with a “father” who is planning a lavish birthday celebration, and wowing an audience of school children with his manufactured tales of aviation. And then there’s Vera (Maria Hofstätter), a despondent older woman who is seeking guidance in dealing with an inflexible and argumentative husband.Vera finds strength in working with the role-playing Matthias, but other clients are less pleased with his talents. The same is true of his wife, Sophia (Julia Franz Richter). When Sophia decides to leave him because he “doesn’t seem real anymore,” Matthias is blind-sided, but we aren’t. The tension in their relationship is there to see. Perhaps, Matthias — with his coiffed hair, “healing” manner, and blandly unassuming smile — is so dutiful in adopting different guises he can’t stop being “on.”As it turns out, the lonely person in need of a friend is our hero, and his struggles to regain a sense of self are awkward and sweet. Notwithstanding Mr. Wanger’s astringent wit — he has some cutting observations to make about therapeutic language and the artsy set — the picture is warmer than its chilly production design would seem to suggest. Might Matthias be a harbinger, however halting or unlikely, of a healthier time? That’s the question “Peacock” puts into play.

While ‘Peacock’ May Feel Like Science Fiction, Filmmaker Bernhard Wanger’s Debut Feature Is of the Present

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