fantasia

Shot on film by cinematographer Alex Ashe to achieve a warm, grainy period look, the movie takes its two-people-talking premise as the unlikely springboard for a subtly rendered visual fantasia.

The putrid chamber drama becomes a fantasia, befouled rags turn into tuxedo pants and it’s finally safe to belt how they feel.

The germ of an edgy fantasia about an isolated pop icon’s ego death is swimming somewhere in the DNA of “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” but it’s been flattened into a superficial, tear-stained pity party.

One chapter looks at a literary example, William Wells Brown’s novel "Clotel," which is something of a fantasia on the Sally Hemings story.

What happened, of course, was this: a glittering disco-soul fantasia that still ranks as one of the greatest album openers in pop history.