For his fourth film Magic Magic, Chilean director Sebastián Silva uses the desolation of Patagonia to give this psychological chiller an environment that emphasizes the isolation of the protagonist (played by Juno Temple). Unfortunately, since the cause of her descent into madness is never made clear, the audience is left wondering where things went wrong, not only in the story, but also in the making of the film. American tourist Alicia (Temple) goes to visit her cousin Sarah (Emily Browning) in Santiago, Chile. Sarah has planned a trip to the southern region of Patagonia with her boyfriend Agustín (Agustín Silva, a brother of the director), his sister Barbara (Catalina Sandino Moreno), and their American friend Brink (Michael Cera). The trip has hardly started when Sarah is ostentatiously called back to Santiago to take an exam, so Alicia is left hanging as the fifth wheel on the wagon of Sarah's band of friends. None of them really makes the effort to integrate Alicia into their group, though Alicia's increasingly erratic behavior doesn't exactly invite them to do so (in all fairness, Cera's character is such an asshole that he would probably deserve to be drowned in the cold waters of Southern Chile himself). The line between reality and fantasy starts to blur for Alicia, and the belated arrival of her cousin at their cabin doesn't exactly calm her down. After a ludicrous hypnosis session by Agustín ends badly, Alicia's mental state starts to deteriorate even faster, culminating in a finale that is chaotic and abrupt, and doesn't provide any resolution.
What frustrates most about Magic Magic is that the reasons for Alicia's behavior are never truly explained. Is it being deprived of sleep from the start of her trip (after ten days of Cannes I can assure you: lack of sleep does not lead to insanity)? Is it leaving a stray puppy by the side of the road (this strand is given importance early on, but then left hanging)? Is it because 'the white man' (or woman, in this case) is bewitched in this region where indigenous customs still rule and outsiders are met with suspicion? Or is it the isolation of a young girl, who seemingly has never been abroad, and who can't cope with the whole situation she is dumped in? The film is never clear about this, but it really needs an explanation to amp up the tension. Instead, we are left with a constant feeling that something horrible is waiting just around the corner, only to find nothing there but the Patagonian wild and a sheep or two. Each sequence is set up in typical horror genre fashion, only to deflate when the audience realizes that nothing horrifying is going to happen.