Mr. K

Mr. K, 2025, 2 stars

A single room, Mr. Kafka?

Exclusive to MeierMovies, April 21, 2025

In The Trial, Franz Kafka’s Mr. K, an unassuming bank clerk, is accused by unspecified people of an unnamed crime. After endless bureaucratic nonsense and fantastical entanglements, Mr. K is stabbed and strangled in a quarry, “like a dog.”

The predicament “Mr. K” faces in writer-director Tallulah H. Schwab’s new surreal mystery-fantasy-dramedy is rosier than that of his Kafkaesque namesake, but just a skosh. Initially Mr. K’s only problem is bad service at a creepy hotel, at which he intended to spend just one night. But after repeatedly failing to find the exit the following morning, he soon realizes, like the characters in the Eagles’ “Hotel California,” that he can check out any time he likes, but he can never leave.

The already unhinged Crispin Hellion Glover plays the increasingly unhinged Mr. K, a traveling magician who must use all the tricks up his sleeve to find his way out of this M.C. Escheresque hell of a hotel. During his quest for freedom, he meets employees and guests who – in a Christ-like odyssey – view him first as a “liberator,” then as their destruction, then as a demigod to the hotel’s own “oracle.” He’s even briefly employed in the establishment’s kitchen, which places an almost religious emphasis on eggs. Combine the aforementioned Jesus theme with those eggs, and throw in a rabbit – yes, there really is one – and you suddenly have an entertaining Easter flick. (The film played on Easter Saturday at the recent Florida Film Festival.)

Have I lost you yet? No? That’s surprising, considering Schwab nearly lost me at about the 30-minute mark of her film, when Mr. K seemingly gives up his desire to escape and appears resigned to pal around with his new co-workers. After all, if the protagonist loses his will so soon, for what and whom am I rooting?

Specifically, I was rooting for a better movie. Maybe Orson Welles’ version of The Trial. Or Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! Or The Double, based on the novella by Dostoyevsky, whom Kafka considered a “blood relative.” Or Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel, which is an inspiration for Mr. K, with its dinner guests inexplicably unable to leave their dinner party. Or The Shining, which beats Mr. K in the paranormal-lodging department. Or maybe even The Shawshank Redemption. That last one seems a stretch, but swap a Raquel Welch poster for a chifforobe, and a tunnel to freedom for a worm-like portal to another realm, and Mr. K morphs into an absurd Andy Dufresne. (Like Kafka’s Mr. K from The Trial, Dufresne was also an unjustly accused banker.)

If any of this gibberish piques your interest, check it out. There is actually quite a bit to enjoy. Though Nicolas Cage would have brought far more to the role than Glover, the latter resembles Kafka physically, and perhaps mentally. And the production design and sense of escalating madness make the movie impossible to dismiss. In addition, it’s good to see Irish actress Fionnula Flanagan again. (Twenty-four years after The Others, she has hardly aged.)

But I can’t abide the lack of tension, existential dread and claustrophobia. I applaud your imagination, Ms. Schwab, but next time spend more time channeling Rod Serling. For while Mr. K’s dimension has plenty of sight and sound, it doesn’t have enough mind.

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