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‘The A-Frame’ Review: A Tonally-Awkward Sci-Fi Fable About Death


Calvin Reeder's midnight movie 'The A-Frame' doesn't hit the right notes.

A therapy group for cancer patients, led by the thoughtful but to-the-point Linda (Laketa Caston), plays host to the movie’s wordy introduction and sets the stage for how the film expresses fear and desire. Sam’s work in the realm of parallel realities turns out to have unintended side-effects on cancerous cells, but his methods remain untested, providing Donna with a series of dilemmas about whether to let herself (and other patients like her) become human guinea pigs. Dodani crafts enough comedy and drama through his pained reaction shots that the movie bursts to life when he’s in frame, though the same can’t be said for the rest of the cast, who — whether because of an innate difference in talent, or a discrepancy in how they were directed — feel shackled to the words on the page and never seem to read between them.

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