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7.1/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 7.1/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Mirrors remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have nine minutes to spare and love dusty old black-and-white music reels, Mirrors is a neat little time machine. But if you need, you know, a plot or characters that do things other than tap dance, you should probably steer clear.
It is basically a 1934 music video before music videos were even a thing.
Freddie Rich and his orchestra just sort of stand there on this weirdly shiny stage. The "mirrors" theme of the set is mostly just a cheap visual gimmick that they don't even use that well, to be honest.
At one point, the camera angle gets so bizarrely low that you can see the dust on the floorboards. I kind of loved that. 🧹
And no, before you ask, the "Charlie Day" listed in the cast credits is not the guy from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Though that would have been absolutely incredible.
Instead, we get these guys—Art Gentry and Earl Smith—doing these incredibly fast, slightly breathless vocal harmonies. Their smiles are so wide it looks like their faces might actually snap from the tension.
It reminds me a bit of the manic, energetic physical comedy in Laughing Gas, just pure, unfiltered old-school showmanship.
Honestly, the music is pretty catchy. It has that bouncy, pre-war optimism that feels almost alien to listen to today.
It is not trying to change the world. Unlike a heavier drama from the era like Mother, this is just pure, unadulterated fluff.
And sometimes fluff is exactly what you need on a Tuesday night.
The whole thing just sort of ends abruptly, like the cameraman ran out of film and everyone just packed up their instruments and went home. But it is very charming in its own tiny way.