A single mother and successful executive starts gradually losing her mind when a mysterious man from her past appears out of the blue.
Intense and captivating! I walked right into it, knowing nothing about it. Rebecca Hall’s acting and her character, Margaret, compete to get your attention. Is Margaret that compelling, or is Hall so freaking good? And while you’re wondering, the appearance of the mysterious man, the one and only Tim Roth, escalates the suspense to the extreme. Who is he? What has he done to her? What is he doing to her? What is he going to do to her?
But when you make it to Margaret’s disturbing monologue, take a break for a second – actually 8 minutes, stop asking questions and pay attention. A great director knows when to cut or not. In dialogue, they know when to cut from the addresser to the addressee. They know their actors’/actresses’ abilities and trust them, which extends to Grace Kaufman (Abbie). Writer/director Andrew Semans goes above and beyond and creates a psychological thriller that delves into trauma, manipulation, and their implications and throws you off your comfort zone. He lets Hall, Roth, and Kaufman unfold their talent and paces his film eerily and methodically.
It’s interesting. We may think we know someone, admire their confidence and want to be like them, but little do we know. More interestingly, we may think we know ourselves, but, one day, we might realise that we have forgotten how our actual face looks, buried deep underneath the innumerable facades we’ve put on over the years.
P.S. Speaking of disturbing 8-minute monologues, a similarly unsettling one is Mia Goth’s in Pearl (2022). Remember… a good director knows!
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