1922 (2017)
Thomas Jane, Molly Parker, Dylan Schmid, Kaitlyn Bernard, Neal McDonough, Brian d'Arcy James
Directed by Zak Hilditch
1922 is based on Stephen King's dark and graphic 131pg novella from his 2010 'Full Dark, No Stars' quartet anthology, and parallels Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart'. In 1930, Wilfred James is narrating a written confession of murdering his wife, Arlette, in 1922 with the help of their 14yr old son, Henry. Told entirely from Wilf's perspective, and primarily in flashback, he is a poor Nebraska farmer struggling to make ends meet, which is getting harder & harder. His strong-willed wife (who thankfully isn't a shrew) comes from wealth and has just inherited a significant 100 acres of prime land. Excited in the belief that this golden opportunity could turn their misfortune around and at last bring about success to yield not only a profitable crop, but eventually see the farm passed on to Henry, she puts a damper on hubby's plans by announcing she wants to sell the land to open up a Dress shop in Omaha or St. Louis, and will not budge in her ambition. She is clearly unhappy and tired of farm-living. Wilf is proud of his country roots and has zero interest in relocating to be among foolish, arrogant cityslickers. Evenings on the porch to watch sunsets, and looking out upon the vastness of cornfields do him just fine. [Try not to get the 'Green Acres' theme song stuck in your head. I dare you]. The prospective buyers of her acreage would be a hog-farming company which would cause complications for Wilf having to deal with pollution. The very essence of his self-respect is on the line and further more, Arlette is seeking a divorce and she'll absolutely take Henry with her. And so with each passing day, Wilf's hate for her festers with his explained reasoning delivered in nonchalant, calm and confident manner. Steadfast in staying put, he comes to a drastic solution (feeling he has no other options) by deciding to kill her.
He convinces naive Henry to take part in the deed by telling him his mother is keeping them back, and frowns upon Henry's smitten relationship with the girl down the road, Shannon. Slaying Arlette will be for the best and is necessary to preserve their way of life. It is also despicable insurance to lock his son into being an accomplice as the pact will keep him quiet. After getting drunk and taken to bed, Arlette is brutally killed and her body is dumped down the well. After the unceremonial burial, scheming father and conniving, traumatized son tell the Sheriff she has taken off, ditching them both. No sooner than putting that lie in place, Wilf suddenly finds himself plagued by rats, and his life begins to unravel when it appears his newly deceased wife is haunting him. At first with speechless hesitancy, he begins pondering if he really is being revisited by spectral glimpses from beyond the grave. Having been manipulated into the unthinkable, and wanting no part anymore of their heinous conspiracy, a regretful Henry withdraws his loyalty to his father and runs away after discovering he knocked up Shannon, to which she is sent in shame to a Catholic girls home in Omaha. Having stolen his Dad's car, Henry springs her free and both are bound for goodness knows where. Like dominoes falling in a straight line, the farm falls into disrepair, the house disintegrates into squalor, the police are still investigating Arlette's suspicious disappearance, and Wilf's narrow, greedy actions have directly and negatively impacted Shannon's family also as her shattered parents face their own calamity. In a ghostly visit, a decaying Arlette whispers in Wilf's ear of what Henry and Shannon got up to. The young duo became 'The Sweetheart Bandits' (a nowhere near as violent, pre-Bonnie & Clyde). And forget any nomadic, teen romance.
The pair of kids were dismally ill-equipped to be desperados, and having already sadly lost their innocence, they each met heartbreaking ends. Hearing of their criminal capers and tragic outcome, and one rat-bitten hand-amputation later, Wilf later identifies his son's rat-bitten body. Despised by Shannon's father and unable to find work, the mounting weight of unease now finds Wilf self-contained in a hotel room -- unable to outrun the guilt-stricken consequences of sin that have grown to blacken his soul. A familiar scuffing & peeling of the walls has followed him, and the final end of writing his letter will bring its own physical conclusion. A gaunt, grim, brooding, squinting and drawl-accented Thomas Jane (no stranger to King adaptions, having appeared in DREAMCATCHER, and THE MIST) brings a strong, compelling screen presence, in a powerhouse performance. He is magnetic as the unlikeable & unsympathetic, bitter farmer whose troubles twist into cruelty. There is no delving into Wilf's background and we don't get any understanding of what made him the way he is, or what conflicts he has faced. From his introduction, he is immediately presented as a simple, plainspoken man who we can assume has dealt with considerable difficulties all his life. Whatever those hardscrabble hurdles, in an unforgiving era for him, they've stirred & combined to change his future for the worse. And the stereotype of an uneducated, ignorant Southerner is not portrayed here. Wilf's cold & calculating thought process demonstrates he is not a stupid man. As for the women, it would have been nice if their characters weren't so secondary, and had been expanded with extra shared scenes. Molly Parker and Kaitlyn Bernard are very good but they really only serve as plot devices for the men's actions, and there should have been more for them (especially in Arlette's case as the expression in her eyes alone reveals a sense of yearning to escape the desolation of being stuck motionless in the Midwest; going nowhere in the middle of isolated nowhere).
Instead of any jump scares to frighten viewers out of their seats, it is the lingering and bothersome imagery in this morality play that holds audience attention. And a continual question takes us from start to finish: are we infact seeing the truth? The atmosphere keeps building in spookiness with unrelenting dread, and driven by a minimalistic but unnerving musical score from Mike Patton. A crumbling Wilf and the impending 'crashing down' of his fate having been sealed, exemplifies human duality on display; having allowed decency to be swallowed whole by malignancy. What began as Wilf's hope (in the vein of a Dr. Jekyll or Dorian Gray) was doomed to utter hopelessness and the curse of madness is so imprinted on him, that his visions are an ongoing reminder of the demons of his own creation; that in his present condition, he will never find peace. Even the scratchings and swarming of the rats are a physical metaphor of human pestilence in how a diseased scheme crept forth in a poisonous action for him to ultimately destroy his family. The vermin pour forth to prey on what he's done, and he has to live with not only the figurative blood on his hands, but the consequences of the devastation he has wrought, and the infectious rot which incessantly chews away in his mind; nibbling & gnawing endlessly at his conscience. In total, 1922's bleak layering is quite impressive for how depressing, thin, and mundane content flips into chilling descent. It may look a little too slick and drag in some long spots, but the downward spiral of Wilf through contemplation, and gradual intensification, is top-notch. Lastly, for all of his unpleasantness, he incredibly elicits empathy which is astounding, given how pitiless he has carried himself.
GERALD'S GAME (2017)
Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood, Carel Struycken, Henry Thomas, Chiara Aurelia, Kate Siegel
Directed by Mike Flanagan
Jessie and Gerald have headed to their remote Alabama vacation house to spice up their marriage and bring some sexy back. Once arrived, he pops a viagra pill while she feeds a stray hungry dog in the driveway ($200 Kobe beef). Re-entering the house she leaves the front door open. In her silky night dress to get herself in he mood, he takes a 2nd viagra pill and handcuffs both her wrists to the bedposts. When he initiates a rape fantasy, she is immediately uneasy with the roleplay and orders him to stop and remove the cuffs. The rekindling has gotten off to a disastrous start and after an argument causes him to suffer a fatal heartattack, he collapses on her and falls to the floor. She remains cuffed and as daylight fades, the stray dog enters the house and wanders into the room where it begins to take bites of Gerald's arm. At that moment he rises from the floor to her astonishment, but she is equally stunned when she sees that the dead body is still laying there. Is she talking to a ghost or a figment of her imagination that is processing shock? When she frees herself entirely, she sees herself STILL cuffed on the bed, with Gerald at her side. What the hell is going on with these visions? Is what she sees real and not just fantasy? Are they reflections of a warped mind staring back at her? And now the manifestations of her freed self (a more confident Jessie) and resurrected hubby (a less repressed Gerald) start bickering. He negatively belittles while she positively bolsters -- which one should be listened to? Can she reach a cellphone? Or a glass of water? All the while, the dog keeps returning to the room to feast on the stiff corpse.
Falling asleep from exhaustion, she awakens that night to find a tall, misshapen sinister-looking man who emerges from a corner and shows her a case filled with bones and jewelry. Is he real or also an apparition? Gerald tells her that her vulnerability makes her unsafe to whom this shadowlurker is referred to as the 'Moonlight Man'; Death himself. When Gerald calls her "Mouse", that night she dreams of when she was 12 on a family lakehouse vacation. Her father, Tom, (Henry Thomas in a skin crawling role that will make you never look at E.T. the same again) called her "Mouse" as a pet name which triggers a dark, disgusting memory: that of sitting on Daddy's knee to watch an eclipse, to which he masturbated to his own daughter. She awakens with her wrists cramping in pain from loss of circulation. The couple discuss the blocked-out memory of molestation equating it to her choice in men -- selfish, hurtful dominaters whom she is subconsciously inclined to gravitate towards. Jessie again sees herself at 12, with her father apologizing saying he was ashamed. Tom tries to explain his behaviour by using manipulative reverse psychology and guilt to trick Mouse into keeping quiet. Gerald tells Jessie that 'Death' is coming for her, and in another dream she visits Mouse and apologizes to the girl for what Jessie believed was her fault, and essentially failing her out of fear of ruining the family. Now steeling her nerves, Jessie uses a shard of glass to cut her right hand and with the blood acting as a lubricant, she is able to squeeze free from the cuff, tearing herself badly from peeled back skin. After getting the cuff keys to undo the other hand (and bandaging her wound with tampons), she tries to grab the car keys but passes out from blood loss and dizziness.
She awakens that night, still groggy, to find the Moonlight Man has returned, standing at the end of the hall. She gives him her wedding ring and leaves in the car. Barely alert while driving, she sees the ominous, red sky eclipse from the dreams, and glimpses the Moonlight Man (looking devilish) in the rearview. She crashes into a tree but the noise has got the attention of a nearby house whose occupants come to her rescue. With the passage of 6 months, Jessie -- now narrating -- is writing a therapeutic letter to her 12yr old self, detailing the recovery, having suffered amnesia, and moving on from Gerald's death. The Moonlight Man continued to be a nightly visitor and while her wedding ring was never recovered, she used insurance money to open a foundation for young people who are survivors of sexual abuse. One day she sees a newspaper story about Raymond Andrew Joubert, a grave robber (dubbed the 'Crypt Creeper') who is the Moonlight Man. His background is highly disturbing and with Jessie having been spared, she looks to finally have a metaphorical sun eliminate the eclipse that has shrouded her entire life. Empowered through self-worth and self-preservation, she attends the courtroom arraignment of Joubert. What will happen between the very real monster, and the victim who got away when they meet face to face? Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood are both fantastic in their roles, and GERALD'S GAME is an exceptional psychological thriller that drifting between delirium, expertly examines how secrets and the erosion of trust are just as poignant as they are perilous. When the Gerald manifestation starts recalling episodes in their life, they begin as a means to challenge Jessie to find a solution out of her trapped situation.
Internal dialogue rationalizes in her mind to keep calm and focused. As the manifestations of the couple (as inner voices) each blame the other for marital dissolvement, this further serves as a test for Jessie to stay resolved and be committed to escaping her predicament instead of capitulating, but also brings her to reflect on minor issues that were infact heavy baggage; how past regrets and uncomfy truths that went unspoken in the marriage, are now seen as causes for each partner's growing distance. (He was the pre-occupied businessman and she the withdrawn, childless housewife who both forgot how to love each other; simultaneously going through the motions as they continued to ignore each other). The manifestations appear as truer selves for Jessie to represent strength & ingenuity, and whereas the traits may have ruptured in the relationship to Gerald, trauma now requires and demands they succeed by tapping into inner reserves one may have thought they never had. To take what has been broken for so long and turn that adversity into strength. Through symbolism in both her wandering stream of consciousness and flashbacks, the emotional endurance from pain and suffering forces her to stubbornly work around complicated hitches. Jessie's continued talking to the couple keeps her in survival mode, while talking to Mouse is about confrontation & confession; a twin burden of having upheld a parent's betrayal that is necessary to overcome in order to unshackle herself -- both in physical reality & mentally imposed -- from her locked confinement. Ultimately, the movie tackles individual personal control and how from being crushed by oppressors in various forms, one can rise resourcefully to conquer them.
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