Alison Brie loses her grip on reality in Netflix’s psychological drama Horse Girl

Horse Girl is the upcoming psychological drama with a dash of dark comedy from director Jeff Baena (The Little Hours), and he also co-wrote the script alongside star Alison Brie (GLOW).

Brie portrays Sarah, a shy and lonely young woman who works as an assistant in an arts and crafts store and only really feels comfortable while spending time with her horse. The pressure she feels from a new man in her life and her birthday are two stressors that cause cracks to form in her fragile sense of self, and she begins to experience vivid dreams and sleepwalk. Even worse, those dreams slowly start to infiltrate her daily life, making her experience surreal visions while awake. As Sarah tries to make sense of what’s happening to her she becomes more confused and paranoid, and her grip on reality becomes increasingly weaker.

The official plot synopsis is as follows:

Sarah (Alison Brie), a socially isolated arts and crafts store employee, finds herself more content in the company of horses and supernatural crime shows than people. But when a series of strangely surreal dreams upend the simplicity of her waking life, Sarah struggles to distinguish her visions from reality.

Let’s take a look:

I love watching people fall apart. In movies, obviously. We all experience harmless flights of fancy as we muddle through our daily lives, but there’s a big difference between those and the full-blown delusions that slowly begin to affect Sarah’s life here. Brie puts in a great performance as Sarah as she shows how frightened, confused, and angry she becomes as her ability to differentiate between fantasy and reality becomes increasingly frayed.

If you enjoy movies where the focus is on what the lead character experiences as opposed to what they do, this looks like a fascinating trip. What do you think?

Horse Girl will be available on Netflix on 7 February. It also stars Debby Ryan, John Reynolds, Molly Shannon, John Ortiz, Jay Duplass, Robin Tunney, Paul Reiser, and Matthew Gray Gubler.

Last Updated: January 22, 2020