I had an experience watching this film that I've had before, and that you've
all probably had as well. As I watched it I didn't like it at all, but when I
started to look back on it and write about it, I realized that it was not a bad
movie.
The reason for that? That phenomenon isn't easy to explain for some films,
but in this case it is. It's all in the pacing. Red Road has a lot of good
moments, some powerful images, and some interesting concepts. It doesn't have
much plot, but what it has is interesting. It would make a worthwhile one-hour
episode of Masterpiece Theater. Unfortunately, it presents those 60 minutes of
worthwhile film in 113 slow minutes. I'm being charitable with the word "slow." It could be fairly
called "slow" if it were
a straight drama, but since it is a mystery at heart, it seems to move roughly at the pace
of tectonic shifting. Just about every scene goes on longer than necessary, and
the impact of the glacial pace is compounded by a
bewildering array of nearly indecipherable Glaswegian accents that make it very
difficult to understand what's going on during those rare occasions when the
plot finally edges tentatively forward. I have described other films as "soporific" in the
past, but I was usually writing figuratively to express the fact that the film
didn't consistently hold my attention. In this case, however, the word
"soporific" is used literally. Not only did I find my mind wandering, but I have to confess that I actually fell asleep twice while
trying to watch Red Road. What's more, I also had to take two breaks because I
was nodding off, so I ended up watching the film in fifths.
Kate Dickie plays a CCTV observer in Glasgow. The UK is now covered with
surveillance cameras, but they would be useless if nobody were actively
monitoring their output, so various civil service grinds spend hour after hour
studying banks of monitors for possible suspicious activity. Kate is one such
grind. She seems to be distracted by something on the monitors which is outside
the purview of her job. She is focused in on one guy who doesn't really seem to
be doing anything wrong. Her surveillance of the man eventually extends beyond
the camera views. She starts stalking him through his high-rise public housing
project. The film's POV is hers, so we are led to believe that he's some kind of
bad guy and that she has been wronged by him in the past, but when we actually
see their encounters, he seems like a decent man trying to make the best of a
difficult life. We can only conclude that something connects her to him, and
that she considers it tragic, but we are kept in the dark about the specific
nature of that connection. At first it seems that she intends to kill him. Then
she decides to seduce him.
What's going on?
We're not supposed to know. The first 3/4 of the film unravels as a mystery
because her motivations are kept secret as long as possible. You can probably
guess that what begins as a mystery film makes a metamorphosis into a
hand-wringing drama as the curtains are drawn.
Our Grade:
If you are not familiar with our grading system, you need to
read the
explanation, because the grading is not linear. For example, by
our definition, a
C is solid and a C+ is a VERY good movie. There are very few Bs
and As. Based on our descriptive system, this film is a:
