Rating: C-
Dir: Silvio Nacucchi
Star: Sadie Katz, Randy Wayne, Lily Anthonissen, Greg Travis
By the time the credit rolled, I was really quite annoyed by this – and not because of any confusion with M3GAN. For spoiler reasons, I’ll remain vague, but will warn you against making any emotional commitments to any of the characters, based on the first eighty-odd minutes. Those will not end well. The components of the story are fine, they’ve just been assembled badly: what happens after the end, is potentially a lot more interesting than anything which has happened to that point. But mad props to Katz, for putting it all out there, in a performance which could be the embodiment of “crazy sticking your dick in”, to adapt a well-worn trope. It may be the only component which will stick in your memory from this.
It begins with hiker Tom (Wayne), out in the wilderness, asking for his water bottle to be filled at a remote lodge. BIG mistake. For we already knew the inhabitants of the lodge are sisters Megan (Katz) and Jessy (Anthonissen), who are not so much a sandwich short of a picnic, as the entire hamper. Jessy was the victim of a brutal sexual assault which left her in a childlike state, and seems to have turned Megan into pure, distilled misandry. So Tom just knocked on the wrongest possible door, and it’s certainly no surprise to the audience when he’s drugged, regaining consciousness to find himself chained to a bed, with Megan intent on making sure he understands exactly what her sister went through (top).
His only hope of escape is going to be Jessy, who takes no part in the abuse, and might be convinced to bring him the key to the cuffs. Or might not. For you will likely not be surprised to hear, things aren’t quite what they seem, various flags being raised to this end, such as the two siblings possessing completely different accents. Things eventually become clear with about ten minutes to go, the film then deciding to head in a completely different direction. It’s certainly a brave choice by writer-director Nacucchi, but it’s the kind of leap which needs to work perfectly, or not at all, and the former is definitely not the case here.
Instead, it comes over as a “get out of narrative jail free” card, which can be used to hand-wave away all the questionable choices required for the story to unfold. These would include things such as Tom’s decision to inflict himself on the sisters, resulting from a convenient, perfectly-timed storm. A more rigorous approach to the script might not have required such conceits. What remains does have its moments – think Misery, if Annie Wilkes had used her pussy instead of a sledgehammer – and some credit to Nacucchi for taking a refreshingly unconventional approach to the topic of sexual abuse and victimhood. But more is due to Katz for committing to her role, in a performance I suspect deserves to be in the service of a better story.