While some people once feared the platform was a tool to end the urge for audiences to buy movie tickets, Netflix has increasingly won major auteurs into seeing the upside of their business model.
This includes Martin Scorsese having the capacity and freedom to bring back Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino in his 3-hour epic The Irishman or Paul Thomas Anderson’s short project Anima.
Now, David Lynch has decided to cash in on the opportunity as well with a short 17-minute film titled, What Did Jack Do? The results are unsurprisingly bizarre as well as hilarious.
So what is What Did Jack Do? Well, let’s just say David Lynch plays a game of mental chess with a Capuchin Monkey. To quote the movie Airplane, “I picked a bad week to stop sniffing glue.”
What Did Jack Do on Netflix: What is this movie?
This is not an easy one to unpack, but with David Lynch, that’s just business as usual. It’s hard to know whether there’s anything deeper hidden in this weird little film or if it’s just Lynch having an exercise in style.
Basically, David Lynch plays a detective interrogating a monkey named Jack Cruz about a murder.
At first, it seems like it’s going to play like the famous SNL sketch “Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals,” only it’s David Lynch. That is until a human mouth is superimposed on Jack, and the monkey responds to his line of questioning.
Those who watched Conan O’Brien in his early days might remember his segments of “Arnold Schwarzenegger live via satellite.” Well, Jack talking is very reminiscent of that plus a dash of deep fake technology.
The setting is a coffee shop at a train station, and Lynch films it in a manner that feels like a ’40s noir movie. Almost like Who Framed Roger Rabbit in black and white but weirder, cheaper, and darker.
Then, there is the subject of why Jack is being interrogated, which involves the murder of someone named Max. And this all centers around Jack’s undying love for a chicken named Toototabon, and Jack fondly comments on her breasts.
The interactions between Lynch and the monkey are just as bizarre as the concept of the short film itself. Some of it flows, while other times, it feels like David Lynch wrote the screenplay using a game of Mad Libs.
Oh yeah, and during the interrogation, Jack the Capuchin Monkey randomly breaks out in song about the “flame of love.” Confused yet?
What Did Jack Do further explained
As far as explanations are concerned, there are probably not enough psychedelics in the world to explain just what exactly is going on in this movie.
It could be just that David Lynch woke up and decided he wanted to interrogate a Capuchin Monkey on film just because he can.
And on the other hand, maybe a Capuchin Monkey who murdered someone has finally solved the meaning of love in this existential universe.
Either way, if David Lynch wants to keep interrogating animals on film, then go for it. Only he can square off with a monkey on film and somehow make it fascinating and hilariously tense.
What Did Jack Do is now streaming on Netflix.