Under the Silver Lake (2018)
Directed by David Robert Mitchell
No — Under the Silver Lake is not woke, scoring 10 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
David Robert Mitchell's "Under the Silver Lake" follows Sam, a 33-year-old layabout in the Los Angeles neighborhood of the same name, as he chases a vanished neighbor into a conspiracy involving hobo codes, a ghost songwriting industry, an owl-masked killer, and billionaires who seal themselves in tombs with three wives each in order to ascend to another domain.
Consciousness Markers
There is a genuine vein of 'eat the rich' paranoia: billionaires sealing themselves in tombs to ascend, a ghostwriter exploited for pop hits, and the powerful literally consuming the young — though it plays as conspiratorial mood rather than coherent class critique.
The cast is overwhelmingly white, with a few supporting performers of color (Callie Hernandez, Zosia Mamet) existing naturally in the story without any commentary on representation.
The film is aggressively male-gaze driven, with women functioning as objects of obsession, escorts, and sealed-away wives; critics noted it treats women as a 'conveyor belt' chewed up by Hollywood, which is observation, not feminist advocacy.
The film is a moody, cryptic puzzle-box rather than a preachy one; it gestures at hidden meanings without delivering moral instruction.
The film engages no racial themes; its Los Angeles conspiracy is a uniformly white milieu of aimless hipsters and wealthy elites.
No LGBTQ+ characters, themes, or subtext appear anywhere in the film's paranoid neo-noir plotting.
No environmental or climate themes are present in the narrative.
The film's treatment of bodies is voyeuristic and objectifying rather than body-positive in any sense.
Sam's aimlessness and conspiracy obsession are framed as slacker ennui, not neurodivergence.
No historical revisionism is attempted; the film is a contemporary paranoid fantasy.
Why it received this score
David Robert Mitchell's "Under the Silver Lake" follows Sam, a 33-year-old layabout in the Los Angeles neighborhood of the same name, as he chases a vanished neighbor into a conspiracy involving hobo codes, a ghost songwriting industry, an owl-masked killer, and billionaires who seal themselves in tombs with three wives each in order to ascend to another domain. It is a shaggy, sun-bleached puzzle box, and it premiered at Cannes to a reception best described as split.
For those of us who catalog the era's progressive sensibilities, the film is a curious specimen. Its Los Angeles is almost entirely white, a milieu of aimless hipsters and wealthy elites, and the handful of performers of color drift through without the screenplay ever acknowledging them. There is no queer presence to speak of, no environmental conscience, no interest in neurodivergence, and no historical revisionism. The camera treats women as objects of fixation, escorts, and sealed-away wives, a conveyor belt of the consumed, and the film observes this without advocating anything. Where it does show a pulse is in its class paranoia: the rich literally devour the young, a ghostwriter is milked for pop hits, and the powerful retreat into bunkers while the rest of us pay rent. That is mood, not manifesto.
The film lectures no one. It prefers to mumble cryptic nothings and let the audience assemble the cipher. The result is a stylish, unresolved hangover of a movie, more interested in hidden meanings than in moral instruction. A cult has formed around it regardless, which seems fitting for a film about people who see codes everywhere.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
Young and disenchanted Sam meets a mysterious and beautiful woman who's swimming in his building's pool one night. When she suddenly vanishes the next morning, Sam embarks on a surreal quest across Los Angeles to decode the secret behind her disappearance, leading him into the murkiest depths of mystery, scandal and conspiracy.
Questions about Under the Silver Lake
Is Under the Silver Lake woke?
No — Under the Silver Lake is not woke, scoring 10 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Ultra Based.
Does Under the Silver Lake have any woke elements?
1 of the 10 markers register at 30 or above, led by Eat the Rich (35). On Eat the Rich: There is a genuine vein of 'eat the rich' paranoia: billionaires sealing themselves in tombs to ascend, a ghostwriter exploited for pop hits, and the powerful literally consuming the young — though it plays as conspiratorial mood rather than coherent class critique.
How does Under the Silver Lake compare to other 2018 movies?
It ranks #191 of the 325 films from 2018 we've scored; their average is 20. The wokest is Return (92).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.