A well-to-do couple arrives home after an evening out. Shortly after they bed
down for the night, a home intruder has knocked them out and tied them up. The
burglar ransacks the loot but also has a history with both the husband and the
wife, and is determined to taunt them with mind games. As it turns out, both the
husband and the wife are living under assumed names because of shady past lives,
and neither of them is really aware of the other's secrets. The burglar's
connection to each of them is based on separate circumstances. In the course of
a single evening, the three people engage in a psychological power struggle, and
their true loyalties are shrouded from the audience as long as possible.
Perhaps that sounds implausible. How could the burglar somehow be connected
to both of their former identities based on separate circumstances decades
apart? The screenwriter understood the nature of that incongruity and
incorporated it into the script deftly. You'll just have to trust me when I say
that it's not as illogical as it sounds, but I can't tell you why without
revealing the film's secrets, and those mysteries are the reason to keep
watching.
Don't expect any pyrotechnics here. The budget must have been tiny. This film
is essentially a three character stage play which is set inside a house, and the
story is told in something very close to real time. The director does nothing to
bring the action outside of that time and place except for some brief flashbacks
which are occasionally inserted to illuminate some of the characters' hidden
motivations. No matter where the action takes place, the set always
seems to be under-decorated. I kept wondering, for example, why such evidently
prosperous people were living in a house full of empty shelves.
The payroll expenses must also have been modest because the biggest names in the
film are John Heard and a lesser Baldwin. However large the payroll budget may
have been, it must have been completely exhausted by the salaries of those main
players, because some of the minor roles are filled by people who don't even
seem to be actors at all. (If you watch the film, keep a special eye on the
"rookie cop." That dude is the next Olivier!)
This is Ryan Barton-Grimley's first effort as the director
of a feature film, and it is also his first screenplay to be produced. That
means the film has a rookie
director, a rookie writer, a claustrophobic premise, and a micro-budget. Such a
recipe could have resulted in a disastrous meal, but it does not. While the screenplay reminds me of plenty of earlier films,
the direction is quite effective at masking the limited budget.
An ubiquitous sense of tension, generated by some manic editing and a spooky
sound track, works well enough to make the characters' actions and secrets seem
more interesting and original than they actually are. Moreover, the
author/director was able to weave a complicated web while
keeping the narrative comprehensible. The film's assets were sufficient
to keep me interested in the outcome, and to keep my hand off the fast forward
button.
