Some young Americans go to Chile for the culture or the natural beauty. Jamie (Michael Cera) goes for the drugs. He spends his time sampling the country’s cocaine and partying every chance he gets, but his ultimate goal is a famed hallucinatory cactus. Sebastián Silva’s Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus throws a final obstacle at the arrogant anti-hero as he approaches the end of his odyssey: a harmless, friendly hippie girl.
The movie is a comedy not of clashing personalities, but of one personality that can’t even fathom the other. Jamie is the kind of guy who automatically assumes he is the most interesting person in the room and quickly judges everyone else. Crystal Fairy (Gaby Hoffmann) has a completely opposite worldview. She loves everyone and wants everyone to have a good time without any preconception of what a good time entails. Jamie meets Crystal, a fellow American, while sky high at a party, and insistently invites her to come on a road trip, only to be horrified when she calls the next day to join him and his friends.
The trip that ensues is a mix of absurdity, social observation and primal comedy. The plan is to obtain a mescaline-loaded San Pedro cactus, which shamans have used for 3,000 years, then drive to a desert beach and trip-out like never before. Crystal Fairy poses zero actual threat to the mission—she’s on board—yet Jamie feels threatened and constantly tries to maintain authority with his friends, a set of Chilean brothers (Juan Andrés Silva, José Miguel Silva and Agustín Silva—Sebastián’s brothers), who serve as straight men to counter the extreme personalities of the foreigners from the north. The characters aren’t seeking any particular meaning, just a majestic high. There are lessons to be learned, but whether any of the them bother to learn them is another matter.
Crystal Fairy is the first English-language (albeit with a healthy dose of Spanish) movie by Chilean writer/director Silva, whose work includes the darkly funny social comedies The Maid and Old Cats. He shot with an outline rather than a script, and it shows. The movie has a relaxed, casual feel in both pacing and photography. The story progresses in a natural and linear matter, but is in no real hurry to do so. Sometimes it bursts to life, as in the uproarious climax to the cactus hunt, but at other times it’s happy to quietly observe its characters.