DVD Review: Motivational Growth

By Jeffery X Martin

One of my favorite movies is a film from 1968 called Symbiopsychotaxiplasm. It is the cinematic definition of “meta.” A film crew is making a film in Central Park. They are being filmed by another film crew. Somewhere across town, a film class is critiquing the film as it plays out. Meanwhile, a flamboyant group of Central Park weirdos interrupts the filming of the original film. If it sounds like madness, it’s not. Sure, it’s experimental as Dr. Jekyll, but it’s an utterly fascinating watch.

Here’s what I’m going to do.

I am choosing to believe that the movie Motivational Growth is also an experimental film, in the great vein of those made in the Sixties and Seventies. It is the only way I can wrap my head around this flick. On the surface, it seems like a standard film. We meet Ian Foliver (Adrian DiGiovanni), who has not left his apartment in months. The place is a mess, with food containers and dirty clothing lying about. After Kent, Ian’s console television (yes, he named it), finally explodes in a shower of sparks, Ian is forced to interact with the outside world.

But there’s another factor involved. There is a giant patch of green mold in his bathroom. It talks. The Mold tries to give Ian advice on how to regain his life, but there’s no way to know if The Mold is trustworthy or if it has a hidden agenda.

Besides being voiced by Jeffrey Combs, The Mold is also a powerful hallucinogenic. After presenting Ian with part of itself to eat, The Mold becomes a shady character. Ian spews toxic spores from his mouth, killing some people that wander through his life. It’s gross.

Ian also breaks the fourth wall, and does so the first time the audience meets him. It’s a strange, almost sitcom ploy to pull the audience in. But whenever Motivational Growth does something to engage with the viewer, it does something that shocks the audience back out of the story. This is evidenced by the usage of old-school computer animation (it looks like an early Nintendo game) to render an important plot point instead of continuing with live action. Imagine sitting through the first 45 minutes of Psycho and having the first murder be enacted by stop-motion animated dinosaurs. That’s how jarring the effect is.

Directorial decisions like that are difficult to like, but hard not to respect. In a strange film like Motivational Growth, which owes a great debt to both Little Shop of Horrors and the early Seventies work of Frank Zappa, any move towards originality is welcomed.

Admire the brave acting of DiGiovanni as well as Pete Giovagnoli as his addled landlord, Box the Ox. Try to figure out the inspirations for Combs’s voice performance. Shake your head through the brutal tonal shifts. Marvel at the 8-bit music soundtrack.

Motivational Growth takes risks on the same level as Symbiopsychotaxiplasm but adds extra layers of humor and pretension. And while Motivational Growth is different enough to merit a look, it still leads to the inevitable question: is it art, or a tremendous pile of shit?

I’m still not sure and, in a way, that’s not a bad recommendation.

Motivational Growth was released on February 17 by MVD Entertainment Group and Parade Deck Films.