Mathias is an understanding, cultured, polite, patient, good listener, and easygoing man: all of this makes Mathias a man who would be happy to be with anyone. In return, Mathias is happy to be with almost anyone: a middle-aged single man looking for a date to a classical concert, an older married woman who can’t talk to her husband, or a man his own age who needs a fake friend to secure an apartment lease. Just because he’s paid to be with them doesn’t mean he treats them with any less care than he does with any of his unauthorized relationships—which can be a problem, as Mathias realizes when his girlfriend dumps him, angrily telling him, “You don’t seem real anymore.” This brief remark sends Mathias into a state of turmoil, a crisis of self, that gives Bernhard Wenger’s brilliant black comedy “The Peacock” its unexpected course.
This polished, wry debut from its Austrian writer-director has already sold strongly in key territories thanks to its brilliant, translatable satire and a fast-paced lead performance by Albrecht Schoch – the German star who made an international impression with his BAFTA-nominated performance in All Quiet on the Western Front.
Based on a seemingly absurd premise that was actually inspired by the real-life boom in Japanese friend-rental agencies, this film reflects the Instagram-driven micromanagement and human connection stumbling in the age of hyper-social networking, and is smart and distinctive enough to transcend the inevitable comparisons to the work of Yorgos Lanthimos and especially Ruben Östlund. Peacock is a notch or two warmer than either film, with Matthias’s melancholy search for the person he lost somewhere along the way making him a likable antihero. There’s still a whisper of formal Austrian cool in its strange, unobtrusive perspective and impeccably composed balance: Albin Feldner’s lensing is clear, bright, and still, a restrained palette for laughs.
The film opens on a surprisingly dark note, with a bizarre scene of a golf cart on fire on a putting green, then a man and woman nimbly rushing into the frame with fire extinguishers, before congratulating each other on their heroism. The man is Mathias: in the absence of any context for this scene, we are left to assume that putting out fires on the golf course is simply another day at the office for a man who prides himself on his poise and helpfulness in all situations. Always smartly dressed and well-groomed, not a hair out of place in his neat moustache or flowing blond hair, Mathias is the CEO and marketable face of My Companion, a Vienna-based friend-rental company that masks any potential melancholy or extravagance in the organization with friendly, therapeutic language and a bright, millennial aesthetic.
Work is clearly going well, if the sleek, modern home he shares with Sofia (Julia Franz-Richter) is any indication. However, between his many and varied work schedules and the homework he has for each of them (flying review to pretend to be a child pilot's father for school careers day, preparing a speech for his father's lavish 60th birthday celebrations), there is less and less time in the day for Matthias to be Matthias.
When Sophia leaves him, he finds that he no longer has any connection to himself, while everything he tries to rediscover—from expensive yoga trips to a spontaneous flirtation with an acquaintance (Teresa Frostad-Egispo) that he disastrously misunderstands—leaves him feeling out of step with modern social rhythms. Even his house feels like a show home that isn’t really his, with inexplicable plumbing problems, strangely perfect decor (all thanks to Katharina Haring’s clever production design) and a toy-like Pomeranian puppy that he also rents from an agency (“Thanks for calling Rent-a-Dog—good boys only.”). He’ll need a radical break in his routine to find himself, and selfishness can’t be great for business.
Winger’s screenplay is a sly, finely balanced thing, poking fun, often hilariously, at corporate and capitalist ideals of self-improvement and social cohesion, without ever mocking the individuals who feel beholden to those norms. This is felt in the swift, penetrating character studies of Matthias’s clients, who don’t always want company so much as they want others to think they have it, or in his wry but sympathetic treatment of Matthias himself—a kind of human cipher, perhaps, but someone who has all the makings of a confident man if he stands up, well, to it.
In a brilliantly comic performance of great physical prowess and repressed emotional desperation, Schoch initially experiments with the vacuous, pleasant conformity of the protagonist’s professional personas with an ease that seems artificial. As anxiety grows, and his measured expressions and jerky body language become disrupted like television noise, he becomes less poised, less perfect, and much easier to like. “Good service is a reward in itself,” a customer tells Matthias early on, refusing to tip him for his all-too-convincing display of devotion. It’s a parsimonious quibble, perhaps, but it’s useful: “The Peacock” serves as a harsh, then strangely sweet, reminder that real social contracts are often unprofitable.
