Chained for Life

“Actors and actresses who are beautiful start with an enormous advantage, because we love to look at them.” Pauline Kael’s quote opens Chained for Life, which takes place on the set of a campy exploitation flick. In the film-within-a-film, Mabel (Jess Weixler, Teeth) plays the beautiful, blind protagonist who falls in love with a disfigured man (Under the Skin’s Adam Pearson, who himself has neurofibromatosis) while they both await life-changing surgery from a mad scientist. When the director yells “cut,” the exploitation melts away, and we see the film’s cast (made up of actors with a wide variety of genetic physical differences) finally in circumstances that allow them to be in charge of their own narratives. This deeply original dark comedy, ripe with film references cinephiles will delight in, satirizes the film industry without cynicism; it’s ultimately about inclusion and the power in telling one’s own story—a refreshing rebuttal to Kael’s statement.