Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Silva shot this movie on the fly when his other project, the upcoming psychological thriller “Magic Magic,” was put on hold. He turned around, called his three brothers and shot “Crystal Fairy” instead.

The film tells the story of Jamie (Michael Cera) an American in his 20s and three of his friends (Juan Andrés Silva, José Miguel Silva, and Agustín Silva) who plans to drive to the Chilean coastline in the morning to seek out the San Pedro cactus, which is known to contain a potent hallucinogen. Jamie invites a free spirited American hippie chick who calls herself Crystal Fairy (Gaby Hoffmann). Gaby is excellent and she lifts the entire movie to another level. If you remember her as a child star in the nineties (Field of Dreams, Uncle Buck) you will be in total shock. Seeing her as the free-spirited Crystal, who frequently walks around completely “au naturel” (meaning unshaved in all regards, close your eyes, yikes). She’s very funny, witty and her anti-chemistry with Michael Cera (Superbad, This Is the End, Magic Magic) is pitch-perfect. The director never misses the opportunity to play their opposing temperaments for laughs, but it also pulls off the neat trick of casually underlining their narcissism without losing sympathy for either of them. It would have been so easy to just write off “Crystal Fairy” as just another movie about drugs for people who love to do drugs, and I initially thought I would do just that. The problem came when I realized that I had somehow fallen for the characters. Director Sebastian Silva’s witty dialogue and roaming camera style draws you to his characters. With numerous close ups and long takes through each scene the films could stand as a real life documentary, but that isn’t always compelling from a viewer’s perspective.

“Crystal Fairy” is worth watching for a few laughs. However, it is my civic duty to alert you to the fact that Gaby Hoffmann has quite an ample amount of full frontal nudity in this film, and there is a large possibility that this film will forever ruin “Field of Dreams” and “Uncle Buck” for you.

Christophe Chanel