In the engrossing character study The Sound of Silence, Peter Lucian (Peter Sarsgaard) is obsessed with the musical tonality of the built environment. Having assigned each area of Manhattan its own distinct musical key, Lucian prowls the city, tuning forks in hand, to map its sounds.
Lucian pays the bills as a house tuner, bringing well-heeled apartment-owners a kind of auditory feng shui. Lucian is sought after to isolate the hum of a problem refrigerator or toaster that can make a living space depression-inducing. He’s even been profiled in The New Yorker.
But we sense that Peter Lucian is a little too confident in his expertise. He is disdainful of the corporate suits trying to monetize his discoveries. “This is about universal constance, not commerce.” In a mistake of hubris, Lucian takes on a research assistant (Tony Revolori – Zero the bell boy in The Grand Budapest Hotel). Lucian is jarred by corporate espionage, and starts to unravel when a respected scientist views him as a crank. Can he recover?
Peter Sarsgaard is a marvelous choice to play a cool obsessive who seems, at time, both blissfully above validation and desperate for it. In spite of his handsome, regular features, Sargaard’s gift for uncanny stillness helps him play creepy. Sarsgaard’s Lucian has the unintended capacity of reassuring other characters, but making then even more uncomfortable.
Rashida Jones plays Ellen, a Lucian client who is not just garden-variety neurotic, but has been so rocked by a tragedy that she remains profoundly unsettled. Jones is so talented as a comic actress, a voice artist, a documentarian and the writer of that rarest of things, a smart romantic comedy (Celeste and Jesse Forever). Here, she shows her dramatic chops with a character who starts the movie adrift, but grows able to offer emotional safe harbor.
There’s even a welcome appearance by Austin Pendleton as a Lucian mentor of uncertain reliability. I’ve loved Pendleton since his turn in 1972’s What’s Up, Doc?. (Come to think of it, that movie had a musicologist obsessed with the inherent tonal qualities of igneous rocks.)
The Sound of Silence is the first feature for director and co-writer Michael Tyburski, and it’s a promising debut. Despite using an understated color palette, Tyburski delivers some stirring cinema with his use of sound. As Lucian looks over the city early in the morning, we hear a few musical notes, and then a full orchestra tuning up as the city awakens into its workday. When Lucian takes Ellen for a drink, it is to the quietest possible venue – a club with a decibel level somewhere between a library and a morgue; afterwards, Lucian emerges into urban cacophony. When an academic treats him like a crackpot, we all hear ringing, not just Lucian.
As one would hope, the sound design of The Sound of Silence is remarkable, and the score works very well. I saw it earlier this year at the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) and it’s playing at San Francisco’s Presidio and San Jose’s 3Below; you can stream it on Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.