The Domestics is a term used for people unaffiliated with a gang who are just trying to survive in a dystopian America after a chemical attack. A not happily married couple decide that it is the perfect time to leave their safe haven for a road trip and must do their best to survive to reach their destination, but do they have what it takes? While they may survive, their marriage may not.
The Domestics is ninety-five minutes long, and it took sixty-nine minutes for the movie to work for me, but once it did, I would heartily recommend it. Mike P. Nelson, the writer and director, clearly would have preferred to have a series and wants us to appreciate every detail of his post-apocalyptic film. He initially uses one of the two protagonists as a narrator to set the stage then uses a DJ as a Greek chorus to prose dump and explain what is happening in the film, which is coincidentally unfolding in regular life. The various gangs featured in the beginning are the usual rapey or homicidal predators with haunting outfits, specifically the Nailers, the Plowboys and the Sheets, which I wondered if the latter was a reboot of KKK. Even when seemingly ordinary people appeared, I was able to predict their brand of evil. It is the usual schtick of people are crazy.
It also did not help that The Domestics’ protagonist, the couple, annoyed me. I know that I was supposed to be rooting for them, but they are mostly dumb and unsympathetic even if Supergirl’s Superman, Tyler Hoechlin, plays the husband and Kate Bosworth, who played Lois Lane in Superman Returns, plays the wife. (I recognized Hoechlin, but Bosworth could be sitting next to me maskless on a park bench, and I wouldn’t. I am unfamiliar with her work.) As someone currently living in a dystopian world, I can assert with some authority that if they were having problems in the normal world, their marriage should not be able to withstand a crisis. As numerous contestants from The Amazing Race can attest to, a road trip in which the US is cos playing Mad Max’s Australia would probably be the final nail in the coffin. The wife really annoyed me because the movie lets us know that we are roughly 905 days (almost two and a half years for those of you without a calendar) into the horror, and she still has not touched a gun even though her dad had one, and she thinks that she gets the Jessica Biel Blade: Trinity exception and can play music while in danger. M’aam, no you cannot. I need you to do something practical. While the husband is supposed to be appealing because he is faithful, moral yet can get rough when necessary, I kept thinking, “Dude, what are you doing?” I really got annoyed when their stupidity kept getting other people killed who inadvertently got caught up in their drama, which happens right until the end of the movie. Can you imagine surviving chemical attacks and roving gangs then these two manage to get you on the radar of psychos that you had successfully navigated or avoided. They are a blight.
Fortunately The Domestics starts to get a sense of humor during a fight between the husband and the Gimp from Pulp Fiction, who is thankfully getting work. I cracked up at how everyone parted ways after the fight. As the film progresses, you see glimpses of normal people who realize that they got carried away with the opportunity to create an apocalyptic persona as they sober up after the adrenalin wears off, and they blinkingly are awakened to their senses when the shock of bright sunlight hits their faces and ridiculous outfits. This sensibility pervades The Gamblers, who are a dreadful bunch, but are the most relatable gang depicted in the film. They can be reasoned with, have rules, have women in the ranks and a somewhat functioning society albeit based on degenerate, endless hard partying. They mostly like each other, have a routine and a sense of camaraderie within their group. Their gang members felt like individuals from the MC, Wanda, who had the best lines, and her precious henchman.
In spite of The Domestics being in love with its creative inventions, I did feel cheated that the film never showed us The Cherries en masse. They have a bad name, but based on the roving bands of rapey men, I have got to hear both sides. The Cherries sound like a gang formed in self-defense and may need to make a guest appearance in Casey Affleck’s Light of My Life. We only get to see one in action and though she barely gets two words of dialogue, Sonoyo Mizuno is riveting. In contrast, the haunting, eerie glimpse of the Bobbies was suitably brief and chilling, especially considering the movie relies on implication and a smart audience instead of painfully explaining it out for us, which could have made it distastefully exploitive or unintentionally humorous.
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When the wife finally starts to rise to the challenge of her circumstances, the way that she did it sparked a theory that I started to consider during the scenes between the husband and Lance Reddick’s character, a happily married, generous cannibal. The chemical attack may have side effects or immunity may signal that something was mentally wrong with the survivors. Even the husband, who is a nice guy, has a signature death move of stabbing dudes in the eye. No one does that on day one of defending themselves unless they start off a little bent.
When the wife finally embraced her crazy side, while I can understand that she does not trust the Gamblers because they kidnapped the married couple and made them fight each other, they do seem to keep their deals, and she fulfilled their terms so she did not have to kill anyone. I cosign getting the gun, but killing the MC was an unnecessary way to create enemies, and Wanda and her crew clearly loved him. Just because they are not respectable does not mean that they are unfeeling or do not have close family bonds like the titular group. She killed a human being who was relatively sane in comparison to all the other nutjobs that had crossed their path earlier. The husband spared the cannibals, but she understandably did not trust them. Her husband kills when he has to. She kind of enjoys it.
I loved that Wanda shuddered upon arriving in the suburbs and was clearly scared when the sex trafficking Plowmen arrived. I would not have minded if the movie just stuck us in the middle of The Gamblers’ society and scrapped the everyman couple to relate to. The story got interesting when the wife got a little bloodthirsty, and the gangs became a little more human and relatable.
While The Domestics had its own independent vision in spite of having a Tarantino-esque love of nostalgic, retro cultural references and existing very close to The Purge. Unlike The Purge, it is not especially interested in alluding to the socio-economic and racial woes of our society and stays on the superficial level of the dystopian landscape as an excuse to unleash your evil side. I did not mind. Less is more, and while Nelson definitely made an entertaining movie, it would have been more consistently fun if it had restricted its vision and killed some of his pretties in the editing room.
