52 Films by Women Vol 10. 48. BY DESIGN (Director: Amanda Kramer)

 

Pictured: 'Who's that chair?' Jazz pianist Olivier (Mamoudou Athie) bonds with his ex-girlfriend's parting gift, a one-of-a-kind wooden chair, unaware that it contains the soul of a middle-aged woman, Camille (Juliette Lewis) in a scene from one-of-a-kind writer-director Amanda Kramer's film, 'By Design'. Still courtesy of Music Box Films (US), Bulldog Film Distribution (UK)

Some directors don’t court commercial success but instead plough their own artistic furrow. An example is American Amanda Kramer (born 1981). With a succession of films – Paris Window, Ladyworld, Please Baby Please - she has blazed her own trail, attracting actresses of independent persuasion, including Demi Moore, Maya Hawke and Andrea Riseborough, to collaborate with her. Her films are highly stylised and, by her admission, not set in any particular era. She makes use of production design, voiceover narration and dance to create a metaphor-filled mise-en-scene. While she doesn’t have the budget to move the camera in elaborate ways, she controls the frame with a high level of precision. She also places a high level of trust in her audience, that they will relate to her protagonists, no matter how out there their behaviour.

By Design, her latest feature, premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and took almost two years to reach a UK cinema, that is, London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts. It is absolutely worth the wait and exercises its control from its first two title cards, which collectively list the entire cast and crew. Lest you want to breathe at the end, it has conventional end credits, which additionally list the music. Every scene looks like it was filmed in a studio, perhaps the same studio re-dressed, through there are sequences that take us outside, on a balcony and an alleyway respectively.

Pictured: Spellbound. Middle-aged woman Camille (Juliette Lewis, centre) decides she must buy a chair examined by best friends Lisa (Samantha Mathis, left) and Irene (Robin Tunney, right) in a scene from the film, 'By Design', written and directed by Amanda Kramer. Still courtesy of Music Box Films (US), Bulldog Film Distribution (UK)

It stars Juliette Lewis, the actress daughter of the late Geoffrey Lewis, best known for roles in the 1990s movies, Cape Fear, Natural Born Killers and Kalifornia. She has a youthful, puppy fat face and small, still eyes. Her resistance to blinking is evident in her role as Camille, an unattached woman with a hairdo that resembles a hat and a coat with a matching knotted scarf. The narration explains that she is attracted to her downstairs neighbour. What we actually see is her bonding with a designer chair that she spots in a boutique furniture store, the sort that appears to have no windows and is staffed by a young woman whose creativity with her eyeliner fails to mask an intolerance of time wasters. Camille sticks to a budget. Her one indulgence is lunch with best friends Lisa (Samantha Mathis) and Irene (Robin Tunney) which costs $75; she keeps the cash to pay for it in a specially-marked white envelope. Unable to purchase the chair at first sight – Lisa offers to buy it for her, but Camille refuses – she returns the next day to find that it has been sold. The assistant wants her to leave but agrees to share the name of the buyer, Marta Klein (Alisa Torres), adding that it was purchased as a gift. To use film analysis language, Camille is attracted to the chair’s ‘to-be-looked-at-ness’; it is admired unconditionally. Camille wants to be the chair, and after hugging it in the store and reciting ‘I wish’ multiple times, her consciousness migrates to the chair while her human body, retaining pliability, collapses in a heap. The assistant digs into Camille’s otherwise flat, green handbag to find her red, small but well-thumbed address book and calls Lisa and Irene to collect the unconscious body of their friend, unaware that any migration of souls has taken place..

The narration is spoken by Melanie Griffith, the star of Body Double and Something Wild, who knows something about being looked at. The film doesn’t judge Camille – this is not a cautionary tale, rather a tragedy of sorts. Instead, it contextualises her. Camille is the woman who offers a ‘bird’s eye view’, offering understanding when one of her friends calls to inform her that the other wants to move ‘back’ to France, a country the friend has only visited. Camille refuses to be resentful. Her mantra (uttered three times) is ‘resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.’ We understand Camille’s desire to experience life in an uncomplicated, non-transactional way. It is a universal feeling, albeit expressed through the medium of the ‘body swap’ movie.

Camille-as-chair is given to jazz pianist Olivier (Mamoudou Athie) as a parting gift by Marta, who leaves him with practically nothing else. We meet him as he stands by a service elevator about to make an appearance at an all-night party. He receives a briefing from Gary (Keir Gilchrist). ‘What are you about to play?’ Gary asks. ‘Light jazz,’ Olivier replies. ‘What exactly?’ Gary demands. Olivier concedes that he’ll take requests. ‘You’ll accept any drink that is given to you,’ Gary tells him. ‘But it’s past midnight,’ Olivier pleads, adding ‘I’m already tired.’ Olivier’s status is lowly. He doesn’t want to be looked at and will spend his performance looking at the keyboard. ‘No,’ Gary barks, Olivier’s job is to command attention.

The next day, Olivier falls for the chair and clears his apartment so that it remains the sole item of furniture. He even brings the chair with him to a dinner party, receiving admonishment from the four female guests, three young, one much older, who ask, ‘how many items are contained in a dinner service’ and ‘how many chairs?’ It is as if by bringing his own chair, Olivier anticipated that there would only be five chairs provided by the host for himself and the five guests – surely a social faux pas. The women entreat Olivier to leave his seat so that they can examine it. When he refuses, one of the women gets up and looks at the chair from behind. Another woman spills wine on Olivier’s lap, forcing him to get up. He watches helplessly as the women try out his chair, as if defiling it. The scene resembles a form of sexual assault on Camille herself. It illustrates Kramer’s peculiar talent for making us share her protagonists’ sense of horror. Even though the action seems benign, we completely acknowledge Olivier’s feeling of offence.

Pictured: 'I'm the abuser in my marriage.' Mother (Betty Buckley) speaks to the unconscious body of her daughter, Camille (Juliette Lewis) in a scene from writer-director Amanda Kramer's film, 'By Design'. Still courtesy of Music Box Films (US), Bulldog Film Distribution (UK)

Meanwhile, Camille’s limp body is visited by her mother (Betty Buckley), who has her own key. Mother takes off her glasses and reveals a bruise, explaining that she walked into a cabinet. ‘In our relationship, I’m the abuser,’ she explains by way of not presenting herself as a victim. She places a blue spangly shoe on Camille’s foot, tells her off for appearing to make a face, and then starts sorting through Camille’s footwear, shoving them onto the carpet. At no point does she acknowledge Camille’s absent consciousness.

Pictured: 'What have you done to my chair?' Designer Aldo (Udo Kier, centre) reacts angrily in a scene from writer-director Amanda Kramer's film, 'By Design'. Still courtesy of Music Box Films (US), Bulldog Film Distribution (UK)

Meanwhile, Olivier tries to contact the chair’s designer, Aldo Fabbri (Udo Kier, in one of his final screen appearances) and agrees to hosting a photo shoot in his own apartment. The narrator tells us that the designer is accompanied by a photographer, publicist, assistant and intern (the latter is a comic touch). Aldo is horrified to sense that something has ruined his chair. ‘Did you lacquer it?’ he asks. He wants to take the chair away, Olivier to be compensated with another piece. Olivier refuses.

There is a dark scene in which Camille’s hitherto unacknowledged stalker, Jacob (Clifton Collins, Jr) breaks into Camille’s apartment and drags her limp body out of the window onto the balcony, with the attention of abusing her. He feels conflicted and topples backward. Lisa and Irene discover his dead body in an alleyway below, a pool of blood formed around his head.

The magazine spread on Olivier’s chair enables Lisa and Irene to find the owner. They take Camille with them to see the chair, Lisa – or is it Irene - being prepared to steal it. As they talk in the alley, items of clothes and a teddy bear fall of out of a window, Finally, a distressed woman appears in the far distance.

The climax takes place in Olivier’s apartment; Marta is also present. There is another recitation of ‘I wish’. Camille’s body regains consciousness. She stares at Olivier, as if acknowledging their intimacy. In her human, late middle-aged-form, he does not see her.  

Punctuated by dance sequences that illustrate Camille’s bond, and, at one point, picture-in-picture (a phone conversation where the woman on the other end of the line is depicted by a set of red lips), By Design has been described as a comedy. However, it is more like a horror film. It shares its subject with Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance. Kramer isn’t interested in kowtowing to genre expectations. Rather she articulates her themes by acknowledging the stale reality of late middle-aged-women’s lives, shopping and meeting for lunch, asking the question, ‘why isn’t there more?’

Reviewed at Screen Two, Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Mall, London, Tuesday 27 October 2026, 12:10pm (midday) screening