‘Under the Silver Lake’ is on Amazon Prime, If You Want to Feel Deeply Uncomfortable for Two and a Half Hours

Do you want to have your nagging paranoia completely and totally validated? Do you want to feel very unsettled and uncomfortable, but, like, in a profound way? Do you have two and a half hours to spare? Then head over to Amazon Prime Video and queue up Under the Silver Lake, a neo-noir thriller starring Andrew Garfield, and the follow-up film from It Follows director David Robert Mitchell.

Considering Mitchell’s cinematic clout and the film’s mostly positive reviews, it was odd that the studio, A24, opted to dump the film on VOD after just a four-day-long theatrical release back in April. But now that the film is available to stream for free for Amazon Prime subscribers, perhaps it will finally reach a wider audience. The few people who have seen Under the Silver Lake already—mostly film critics—had a mixed reaction to the film. Inkoo Kang, former Slate film critic, called it “a dippy blast,” while Peter Travers of Rolling Stone felt it was a film that “goes nowhere, very, very slowly.”

The plot finds a young man named Sam (Andrew Garfield) drifting through life in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. Supposedly Sam is an aspiring actor, but we never once see him at an audition. He’d rather indulge in his hobby of decoding hidden messages in pop culture, which becomes a full-blown paranoid obsession after his neighbor—a pretty girl named Sarah (played by Riley Keough)—mysteriously moves out. Sam falls deeper and deeper into his insane conspiracy theories—like the one that Vanna White is sending him a message via her eye movements on Wheel of Fortune reruns—and loosely connects various threads to what happened to Sarah, the death of a famous billionaire, and the neighborhood Dog Killer. I won’t spoil it, but it’s a wild ride that doesn’t necessarily dissuade budding conspiracy theorists. Perhaps it’s unsurprising, then, that the film inspired fans to search for hidden messages within the movie about hidden messages—so meta—prompting a mega Reddit thread breaking down the tiny details of the film.

It’s also a slow ride: 139 minutes may be the norm for an Avengers film, but spending that long watching Spider-Man 2.0 have a mental breakdown without a clear plot can be a bit much. Still, it’s worth your attention if only because there’s truly no other modern film quite like it. Take it from me, the person who had to leave her screening to fend off a panic attack but still can’t get the images of a sweaty Andrew Garfield out of her brain, four months later. Also: You do get to see Andrew Garfield’s butt. Who could say no to that? So go ahead and give Under the Silver Lake a stream on Amazon Prime.

Stream Under the Silver Lake on Prime Video