What’s really wrong with Richard is that he’s a boring monster. He’s too obvious to be unsettling, and too goofy to be pathetic. Who really cares about a well-dressed creep who skulks about like a young Mr. Burns, and talks about the world beyond his Central Park penthouse as if it were a hot plate he’s touched a few too many times? You have to want to suspend your disbelief to care about Richard, and unfortunately, the qualities that define him on a scene-to-scene basis are often a weird mix of tired clichés and vague insinuations. Richard’s monstrousness doesn’t appreciate with time either: he just becomes more ungainly and, well, wrong.
In case the movie’s title is too mysterious: “Mosquito State” is about what went wrong before the 2008 market crash. Richard and his prized algorithm apparently saw the writing on the wall, but his employers did not listen to him because that obviously would have been bad for their business.
And while Richard tries—and fails—to keep up appearances at work, he also fends off a mosquito infestation in his enormous apartment. Floor-to-ceiling windows, concrete slab walls, a working fireplace, the whole bit. Mosquitos swarm the joint by movie’s end, because that’s a good part of what’s supposed to be wrong with Richard.
That’s bad, I guess, because Richard needs some perspective in order to divine his “models”; otherwise, his eccentricities simply aren’t profitable. So Richard faces a surreal but essentially personal crisis, and finally realizes that he’s only so valuable to the people in his life.
This epiphany understandably depresses Richard, but more often than not, the makers of “Mosquito State” indulge Richard’s upset instead of giving it serious consideration. He pouts when asked if he’s following the Utah miners’ then-ongoing story: “No, but I know how these stories end.” Because of his knowledge of models and trends, right? And when Richard scuffles into his office, we follow him from behind, so that his hunch stands out, but also so that we’re not overwhelmed by the blotches on his face. Richard’s character is a special effect that’s used to low-key provoke viewers. It’s also handled with so much care that one can’t help but feel let down by the movie’s anticlimactic finale.
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