The Paragon leans hard into its campy, irreverent tone at every turn, making for a charming and surprisingly sincere fantasy comedy.
Writer-Director: Michael Duignan
Genre: Comedy
Run Time: 83′
US Release: September 6, 2024
UK Release: TBA
Where to watch: in select US theaters and on digital
If there’s any film in 2024 that I wish could get a wider release solely to see how audiences react to it, it would probably be The Paragon. Okay, actually, it would be Boy Kills World, because it deserved so much better. But The Paragon is a solid second choice. I can see a large chunk of its audience embracing it as a loveable, campy fantasy comedy, and just as many people rolling their eyes at its perceived lameness and cheapness.
In so many universes, I’m in that second camp. But thankfully, this low-budget effort’s strange, quirky, yet unexpectedly sincere charm proved to be right on my wavelength.
Dutch (Benedict Wall) is the victim of a hit and run with a now-busted leg and a life in ruins. He then comes across Lyra (Florence Noble), a psychic woman who offers to teach him the ways of her powers. Wanting revenge against the person who hurt him, Dutch undergoes her training so he can track down the car involved, only to find himself caught up in a much “grander” conflict for the fate of the world … and I put the word “grand” in quotes, because in no way is The Paragon trying to convince you that it’s anywhere close to as big and epic as the story would have you believe. And, in an unexpected twist, it’s all the better for that approach.
The Paragon is a total enigma in how little it seems to be trying at times and how well it pulls off that seemingly low-effort vision. It’s the kind of film that I can imagine a group of friends would make just for fun and have the time of their lives doing it together. I don’t mean that in the sense that there’s no real skill on display, because there definitely is. I’m talking more about the spirit of the film, from its lines to its simplistic set pieces to its matter-of-fact, irreverent wit that asks you to just go along with whatever it throws at you because … eh, it’s just here to have a good time.
And a good time it is, largely due to the two leads. Benedict Wall effectively conveys his character’s genuine pain while keeping him entertainingly snarky and cynical. He may be the most casual revenge-seeker I can remember ever seeing in a movie, which is both funny and refreshing. He bounces really well off of Florence Noble’s drier, more “serious” delivery. She comes dangerously close to underacting at times, but she still works because this character is shown to be more emotionally detached and stoic due to how her powers make her perceive the very nature of the world. On the other side, Jonny Brugh plays the main villain and has palpable fun hamming it up the whole way through.
As these two characters interact as a student-teacher duo, Dutch – and by extension, the audience – learns about how Lyra’s powers work and how deep into the core of his own reality and mental state he must go to reach his full potential … it’s all really, really silly. A lot of it is implicitly a joke or a novelty, something that we should care about because of how campy it is rather than how mind-blowing and heavy it is. In a lot of stories, that tone has gotten under my skin when applied to such heady ideas. But because of the wry, blunt directing from Michael Duignan (who also wrote the film), that silliness oddly enough still sucks you in and gets you invested.
The fun I had with The Paragon is comparable to the fun someone may have playing Dungeons and Dragons, or some other role-playing game filled with rules and lore. You know it’s all make-believe and silly, but you embrace that and commit to it nonetheless. It feels like that’s what The Paragon is doing and wants the audience to do, while still putting in actual effort and skill to make it work as a functioning movie. I was genuinely interested in everything being explored, talked about, and shown. I bought into the much grander conflict and literal world-ending stakes, even with how slathered they are with enough cheese to make a lactose-intolerant person cry.
Part of that is just my own personal interests; I’ve always been drawn to heightened, trippy concepts like multidimensional manipulation, psychic abilities, the core mechanics of time and space itself, and even multiverses, all of which play into the story. As sick as I am of seeing the multiverse as a means of reeling in superhero audiences with fan service, I still find it an inherently fascinating story device that’s used properly here.
Near the end of The Paragon, some actual emotional weight creeps its way in, and the fantasy elements start tying into a character arc for Dutch about how much bigger than one person the world is, how one terrible act may not have the exact consequences you think it has, and how everything impacts each other in ways you can only see when you step outside of yourself. The ending even caught me by surprise with a final reveal that cleverly ties every theme and mechanic together in a simple, uplifting way. The Paragon may ultimately be a comedy, but it still takes the time to weave in catharsis while keeping its tone consistent.
No more time is taken than needed, though, because this is one of the most briskly paced films I’ve ever seen. It knows it doesn’t need to indulge itself and gets right to the point at nearly every turn. Despite it clearly being on a low budget, The Paragon makes the most of what it has with playfully eccentric cinematography from Duignan that even gets a bit suspenseful near the end. Most of the trippy sequences utilize relatively basic editing tricks like color filters and flashing images, but they’re again creative and functional for what the film has to work with. Nothing here could hope to claim any technical awards, but Duignan shows how much potential he has to make something amazing with more resources.
The Paragon is to fantasy what The Princess Bride is to medieval fairy tales: a deliberately artificial, campy riff on a genre that wins you over with effortless charm and talent. I’m not saying it’s better or worse than The Princess Bride, but that’s the type of vision it’s going for. Like I said, I can see anyone loving or hating the film with equal probability. Giving it 4 out of 5 stars may be too generous given the film’s frequent crudeness, but this is one of the few times where the tone on the page matches the craft so flawlessly that the film achieves unlikely greatness.
The Paragon will open at select Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, Austin and more, and on demand on September 6, 2024.
