Between this film and her recent starring role in the British miniseries adaptation of Mick Herron’s Down Cemetery Road, Emma Thompson appears to be staking a place in the action thriller genre.
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| Having been spotted by a pair of desperate and deranged kidnappers — one of whom expertly wields a rifle — Barb (Emma Thompson) does her best to hide. |
Director Brian Kirk’s brooding, atmospheric drama gets its suspenseful heft from a cleverly structured original script by Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb. Thompson handles the starring role with total persuasion; she’s one of a handful of talented actors who can fill even mundane bits of business with complex theatrical heft.
Barb (Thompson) is introduced as she begins a new day, in the isolated, snowbound wilderness of northern Minnesota. Her movements and behavior bespeak countless mornings just like this, but today somehow feels a bit different; her features suggest sorrow.
Her home is adjacent to a bait-and-tackle store that is closed for the winter; both are within easy driving distance of nearby Lake Hilda ... and, indeed, she loads supplies into her truck and heads in that direction. Before leaving the house, she snatches a treasured Polaroid photograph — we can’t quite make it out — and clips it to one of the truck’s interior visors.
But it’s a wretched day, with a blizzard warning; attempting to get anywhere, in the midst of such extreme weather, seems the height of recklessness. Why would someone experienced with such an environment, risk making such a trip?
Ah, but Barb has an excellent reason ... which we don’t learn about, until the third act.
(This Minnesota setting notwithstanding, filming took place in Koli, Finland, and Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia ... where, presumably, the snow and frozen lake conditions were more reliable.)
A faint sound, en route to the lake, piques her curiosity; she follows it to a cabin, where a man (Marc Menchaca) is chopping firewood. Startled, he demands to know what she wants. Sensing something amiss, Barb changes tack and — feigning unfamiliarity — asks for directions to the lake.
Somewhat pacified, he answers; Barb departs. But she notices fresh dapples of blood on the snow in front of the cabin.
Once on the frozen lake, the blizzard having abated, she sets up supplies for some ice fishing. But the recent encounter nags at her. As she heads back to the truck, parked at the lake’s edge, she hears shouts, gun shots and the sounds of pursuit. Barb hides and watches as a young girl (Laurel Marsden, as Leah) bursts from the woods, hands tied behind her back. The wood chopper is right behind her; he fires a warning shot, and orders her to stop.
She does. He grabs her roughly, and marches her into the woods, heading back to his cabin. Barb pulls out her phone, but no service. Too isolated.
Now convinced that something is very wrong, she follows, careful not to be seen. She peers into the cabin basement and spots Leah, handcuffed to a post, her mouth duct-taped. But before Barb can do anything, the man is joined by a an agitated, clearly unhealthy woman in a bright purple jacket (Judy Greer), flecks of blood frequently dripping from her nose. She carries a rifle with the ease of someone who knows how to use it.
(This couple never is named.)
Barb knows that she must do something ... but what?
Kirk and his writers tease and tantalize us with incremental victories overshadowed by frustrated setbacks. This rapidly worsening situation is interlaced with Barb's frequent flashbacks to her younger self (played with radiant joie de vivreby Gaia Wise), and her first date with future husband Karl (Cúán Hosty-Blaney).
These sequences — which includes Karl’s touchingly sweet proposal — serve two purposes. They give us viewers a break from the distressing present-day events, while also establishing the hardy personality that informs the older Barb.
Thompson nails every aspect of her role, and slides easily into the Minnesota patois. That includes Barb's frequently exasperated “uff da,” a quintessential Minnesota term — of Scandinavian origin — that expresses being tired, surprised or overwhelmed.
Most crucially, all of Barb's brave efforts and tactics are reasonable for a woman of her age; at no point does she do anything super-heroic. She’s simply resolute. And creative.
As events progress, the woman in purple — forever sucking fentanyl lozenges — becomes progressively unhinged and dangerous. Greer, her features pinched with equal parts pain and fury, makes her quite scary.
Her husband is a different story. Menchaca makes it clear that this poor guy is hopelessly out of his depth. He has helped his wife orchestrate a crazy, desperate scheme to save her life, but — as Barb's intrusions continue — ultimately cannot completely abandon long-ignored moral imperatives.
Menchaca’s standout moment comes when this fellow, now completely shattered, begs his wife to abandon her lunatic plan.
Dalton Leeb and Brían F. O’Byrne briefly pop up as a pair of gun-toting good ol’ boys who cross paths with Barb; their roles are little more than very dark comic relief.
This brings us to the first of this film’s two serious problems. The couple’s deranged act — the reason Leah has been kidnapped — is bat-shit lunacy, once all the details fall into place: way beyond the most generous suspension of disbelief. Even the complex preparations, prior to this particular day, couldn’t possibly have been achieved.
The story’s conclusion is more than an unlikely eyebrow-lift; it’s a betrayal. Although Kirk and his writers slowly point us in this direction, the result still feels wrong and unsatisfying on numerous levels. We’re also left with some serious “what now?” hanging chads.
That’s a shame ... because we’re firmly under this film’s spell, for most of its economical 98 minutes.
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