Scott Derickson (Director)
A tiny little town set in the bleak brownness of the not so distant year of 1978. It’s close; Everyone knows each other. They know whole families, they know everyone’s business, yet they know nothing at all of any importance. When young boys start to disappear one after the other, not one single resident of this town can shed any relevant insight that might help the boys come home, or to find the person responsible.
Young actor Mason Thames, is Finney, the most recent victim of the child abductor and murder commonly known as “The Grabber.” Finney, twin to the feisty Gwen, is frequently bullied at school, a theme which occurs at home thanks to the children's abusive, alcoholic father.
He is abducted one evening and awakens on a mattress on the floor of a cold, cemented, soundproof basement, with a single window. There is a black rotary phone on the wall that cannot ring out, but rings for Finney in order to help the boy manage The Grabber and provide him with a means of escaping.
Most of the film takes place in the basement with Finney and the ghosts of The Grabber’s previous victims as they talk him through their experiences and try and help; The rest of the film cuts away to his sister Gwen as she goes on a determined hunt to find her brother and his abductor. In an interesting subplot reminiscent of a Stephen King novel, Gwen is psychic and started having dreams about The Grabbers victims prior to Finney being abducted. She is instrumental in supporting the police by providing them with vital information that she’s seen in her dreams.
Ethan Hawke plays our menacing villain. He is intentionally quiet and moves with purpose. We don’t see his face, and his screen presence is significantly lower than the children’s. The Grabber is not the focal point of the story, but a means to an end. Nothing detailed is revealed about The Grabber himself. We see small bits of his personality revealed through the children as they discuss their relationship with him, with Finney. One example is the first ghost that Finney speaks to, Billy, who advises Finney not to go up the stairs of the unlocked door, as The Grabber is there waiting to punish him as part of a cruel game. His motivations aren’t fully revealed, and this mystery, combined beautifully with the elegant silent menace of Hawke’s masked performance, makes The Grabber a deeply sinister character to watch and try to understand.
Hawke was fantastic and froze your heart to watch, not seeing his face was a genius move on the director's part as it added perfectly to the tone of the movie. Madeleine McGraw’s performance as Gwen was the perfect foil to The Grabber. She is bold and brash and memorable; The perfect spunky counterbalance, sunshine in the darkness.
McGraw is memorable and her scenes are powerful, from her fights to her relationship with her dad to her frantic cycle in the rain to find her brother, her fiery scenes are hard to ignore, and add a core element of strength to a film where the key theme is self assurance and discovering your sense of worth. At the start of the film, Finney is silent, bullied and weak, but towards the end of the film discovers his own self worth and realises that he does have the tools to escape and fight back.
Aside from performances, the film is beautifully made, and there is a perfect balance of dialogue and letting the visuals speak for themselves. The aesthetics work perfectly and suit the tone for the movie, creating a sense of foreboding right from the opening scene up until the climax.
In some ways the film is very reminiscent of Stephen King’s It. Yes, The original short story was written by Joe Hill and he is very much a writer of his own skill, but the similarities are hard to ignore. That being said, it doesn’t feel like a Stephen King copy story, it very much feels like an original story I haven’t heard before that reminds me of SK. It is vexing, but brilliant to see on screen and this film is a great interpretation of how the film can be as good as the story.
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