A tarot card reader discovers that his future is in a love affair with a client.
Tempting Fate (2004)
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A handsome but slightly insecure young man goes to a tarot card reader at a local Renaissance faire. (You know, at first, all I could think of was Lisa Simpson seeing her future via a tarot card reader in “Lisa’s Wedding.”) Biker-looking, brooding and defensive, he thinks the card-reading is hokey. The psychic is handsome, with huge liquid-brown eyes and long, flowing hair.
As the card-reading progresses, the cards reveal a markedly accurate picture of the young man’s personality, past and possibly his future. Then the cards reveal that the two are destined to be lovers.
A pick-up line? Or the truth? Well, they do hook up. There is a funny visual moment there; “When the tent’s a-rockin’, don’t come knockin’.”
But when the handsome man attempts to leave, the psychic pursues him out the tent door. The film shifts gear here, turning into a series of surreal chases through discos, mansions, stairwells, hotel corridors and more. When the tables are turned on the psychic, he confronts a choice: Just how much of his future is predetermined?
In its final moments, the film is an interesting meditation on emotional baggage, personal history and the unconscious choices people make as they seek love and companionship.
The key to the film is writer-director-actor Lex Lindsay’s performance as the tarot card reader. Lindsay effectively portrays the slightly campy psychic, but as a man playing a game with his clients. There’s another set of emotions running under his character’s surface, emotions you see in his eyes and the subtle movements of his face. Later, when the psychic has finished sleeping with the customer, there’s a relaxation, a ease of movement, a less campy and more honest character that Lindsay permits to come to the surface. It’s this human portrayal that makes the film work.
