The Hummingbird Project is much more than it seems at first glance.
It’s a thriller about Wall Street that doesn’t feature much of Wall Street. Instead, much of the action unfolds in swamps and forests in which our protagonists’ lives spiral out of control.
The story follows cousins Vincent and Anton Zaleski (Jesse Eisenberg and Alexander Skarsgård), a pair of high-frequency traders whose aim is to build a straight fibre-optic cable from Kansas to the New York Stock Exchange. Throughout the film, they plough through anything in their way to get there, much like how their cable goes underneath houses, through swamps and across fields.
In essence, the film is a modern-day parable of humanity versus greed. Canadian writer-director Kim Nguyen said that the story evoked haunting images in his head: “stock market hustlers struggling to walk through swamps and muddy forests in their expensive suits, putting their sanity on the line all for the good old dollar.”
Nguyen’s last high profile project was the Oscar-nominated War Witch, a spectacular film about a 12-year old girl who is abducted to be a child soldier. The Hummingbird Project never reaches the heights of drama that War Witch achieved, but is nonetheless enthralling and as philosophically interesting as Nguyen’s Two Lovers and a Bear.
What makes the film work is the electrifying chemistry between Eisenberg and Skarsgård. It is reminiscent of Ryan Gosling and Ben Mendelsohn’s dynamic in Mississippi Grind. Eisenberg’s fast-talking, smart-alec persona works well for this character, and he imbeds Vincent with a desperate sense of determinism - as if building this cable is the most important thing he has ever done in life. His acting in the climax, with a chainsaw up a mountain, is definitely some of his best work.
If Vincent is the mouth of the duo, then Skarsgård’s Anton is the brain (although he isn’t fitted for social situations, which makes for a good number of laughs). He spends the majority of the film calculating how to reduce the cable’s speed from 17 to 16 milliseconds. Skarsgård’s performance is brilliant, just as good as he is in Hold the Dark and The Little Drummer Girl. He plays drama and tragedy as well as he does comedy; the scene in which he finally removes that one millisecond is pure comedic gold. His voice is deep, his back is always hunched, and he is utterly believable as a family man who just wants to get his job done, earn his money, and live in a small house in the middle of nowhere surrounded by sound of hummingbirds.
The only performance in the film that doesn’t entirely work is Selma Hayek’s role as tech billionaire Eva Torres, Anton’s formal boss, who tries to take the protagonists’ plan down. Hayek plays it incredibly over-the-top, and seems to be more fitting for an Austin Powers movie.
The Hummingbird Project moves at a very fast pace, and until the ending offers little time to take a breath, aside from a couple of dramatic interludes focussed on Vincent and Anton’s personal lives. It should be noted that this electrifying pace, as well as the erratic mixture of tones varying from the slapstick to the tragic, may turn some viewers off. Although it doesn’t work 100% of the time, I was in awe at how director Nyugen manages hold it together. The film isn’t fantastic, but it’s more entertaining and interesting than a lot of other thrillers out there.
Nyugen’s entire team brings their A-game. Cinematographer Nicolas Bolduc, known for his vivid photography for Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy, gives the film a tactile texture peppered with energetic tracking shots, drone footage and impressionistic slow motion.
Editors Nicolas Chaudeurage and Arthur Tarnowski, whose work on this film earned them a Canadian Screen Awards nomination, aren’t afraid to let shots sit for longer in a scene than usual, which is perfect to not only showcase the performances, but also to balance out the rapid fire dialogue.
For all its sound and fury, The Hummingbird Project actually ends quietly and contemplatively. We get to see Vincent and Anton reflect on what is really worth it at the end of the line; what all our crazy ideas in life really leads us to. It’s a beautiful and thought-provoking moment, and a perfect ending to a unique film.
The Hummingbird Project is in cinemas from April 25th.
