Just to be clear, this wasn't good. But it wasn't as horrible as the rating may make it seem - 3.5/10 at time of writing.

I will also have to spoiler this review, because there's no way to explain what's wrong with Chariot otherwise, but also this may help you understand what the film is about. You see ..

i watched this whole film and even by the end, could not tell what had happened. Now, that's something you *do not* want in your films.

This film is vaguely divided into 3 narrative segments.

In segment 1, we learn that the Protagonist has been having a recurring dream and wants to get rid of it. To do this and WIN(tm), he has come to the city to see a Doctor.

In this section we are explained that the Doctor represents the reliable narration, but The Treatment will only work if the Protagonist is careful about not falling prey to unreliable narration - e.g. The dream, and anything else that is part of his mental illness.

Think of "A Beautiful Mind".

The Protagonist moves to a hotel and he immediately meets reverse-Love-Interest Maria, and they immediately hook up(this is a acceptable scriptwriting technique).

In segment 2, we are shown the Protagonist witnessing some unreliable narration, e.g a man casually floating in midair. We have been told that this is Bad(tm) because it can cause The Treatment to fail.

But at the same time, Maria show to the Protagonist that these things are absolutely mundane and ok, and also we are again shown the Doctor under a different light, so much so that we question if now the Doctor represents the unreliable narration, and Maria represents WIN.

In the third segment the Protagonist chooses Maria instead of the Doctor, and as soon as he does he loses her.

He tries to find her again, but he is almost immediately captured by "The Government" or whatever other sinister entity is the hidden antagonist of this story, and the Protagonist is handed over to the Doctor, now looking completely deranged and clearly a representation of BAD.

And then the film waves the magic wand and everything ends.

The doctor, now fully coherent, reliable and espousing dialogue in full, explains to the Protagonist that, no, there is no Maria. And the Doctor means him no harm.

The protagonist was in fact dead, and in the process of being reincarnated, but he did love a Maria in a previous life, and the dream represented him not being able to let go. Now they fixed him, and he can be reincarnated and have a new full life. Happy Ending.

See, when i write it in this way, the script actually makes sense. And the production in general is very decent, with Malkovich being excellent once again at his job, and his upstanding and rigorous Doctor slowly morphing into a deranged hallucination, but the film doesn't try at all to explain any of this to us, the audience. It doesn't try to explain what the stakes are, what the protagonist wants, I mean, i'm not exactly dumb, and i had to come read other people's reviews to understand the film.

Also, while Malkovich is good, the other actors don't have enough presence to wanton repeat viewings.

My vote:5/10 - too clever for its own good.

I should have listened to the reviews. The movie started out rather interesting. Disconnected events and a floating man in the apartment building lobby made me wait for a connection. The explanation of the floating man never came and the final story line was really rather simplistic and boring.