Rating: B
Dir: John Rosman
Star: Sonya Walger, Hayley Erin, Tony Amendola, Jeb Berrier
There are movies where you are better off knowing as little as possible going in. This, however, may not be one of them. For various reasons, this was watched without any idea of what it was about, and it takes a long time – probably close to halfway – before it tells you. That made it a very slow burn. Once all the pieces fall into place, it’s great and I enjoyed it a lot. Might I have enjoyed it even more, had I known where it was going from the start? Possibly. In the early going, all we know is that Jessica Murdock (Erin) is on the run, and Elsa Gray (Walger) is the head of a quasi-official team tasked with bringing her in, on the orders of her boss, Raymond Reed (Amendola).
What is Murdock running from? This is the most obvious question, and one the movie takes its own sweet time to answer. Information is dispensed with an eye-dropper, rather than a fire-hose, or even a soda syphon. As it meanders on, the story seems more concerned with the fact Elsa has recently been diagnosed with ALS, which will slowly and inevitably make her a prisoner in her own body. There’s a surprisingly affecting scene where she FaceTimes with Laura, who has the disease in a more advanced form. It’s not a typical story-line, in a thriller like this; I suspect there may be some personal connection between writer-director Rosman and the illness.
It is not entirely gratuitous illness porn however, for there is a connection between Elsa’s situation and the mission. It turns out to be the result of an innocent trip into the countryside taken by Jessica and her boyfriend. The unintended consequences of this leave her thinking she is trying to run away from a murder charge, and reach the Canadian border. That’s not strictly accurate, but there is very good reason why she must not be allowed to leave the country. Though it turns out Elsa’s mission is not as officially sanctioned as she was led to believe either. The right things are being done: the reasons for them are far more murky.
There is a degree of nuance you don’t often see, in what I expected (not that I had many expectations) to be a run of the mill thriller. Therefore, I would strongly recommend sticking with it, if you feel in the first half-hour you are being kept in the dark. The film will eventually turn on the light. By the end, when Elsa catches up with Jessica, just shy of the frontier, we have grown to care about both of them. It’s clear their goals are mutually incompatible, however, and only one can succeed. The scale here is, admittedly, quite small, though there are some impressive moments of body horror – also, not expected in the genre. It’s good stuff, and I’ll keep an eye out for anything else Rosman does.