Door Mouse (2023)

3 Stars (out of 4)

Mouse Scrap

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

This low-key neo-noir doesn't go much deeper than its assertion that some people are just monsters, but it has more than enough punk-grunge style and flip attitude to make it consistently interesting.

Mouse (Hayley Law) is a comic book artist who also works nights in a burlesque club, run by Mama (Famke Janssen). One morning she has a bad cup of coffee that brings with it a sense of dread. Sure enough, she learns that one of her co-workers at the club has gone missing.

Mouse and her stalwart sidekick Ugly (Keith Powers) begin investigating, but unfortunately another co-worker, Riz (Michela Cannon), also vanishes, and is later found dead. Through further sleuthing, Mouse traces the disappearances to the Sophia Hotel, where mysterious parties are held for the rich and powerful on an upper floor. Unfortunately, the only way Mouse can get up there is to allow herself to be taken.

A writing and directing feature debut by actor Avan Jogia (who also plays drug dealer "Mooney"), Door Mouse has a great central character in Law's "Mouse," a combination of Philip Marlowe and Tank Girl. (Her hairstyle, done up in two big poofs, resemble Mickey Mouse ears.) Detective and narrator, she's cynical and stoic, but she also genuinely cares about goodness. Even less emotional, and with only a few dozen lines of dialogue, Powers's "Ugly" is a great sidekick, with his floppy dreadlocks and slim, neat suits. He's the Robin to Mouse's Dark Knight.

The mystery story is a little inert, and its themes are a bit familiar, but Jogia's seedy world of burlesque clubs, adult-oriented comic book shops, and crummy apartments is memorably vivid. It's an outsider's world, and part of the drive behind Door Mouse is the outrage over the inequality of it all.