Set nearly solely throughout an pressing automobile experience, Babak Anvari’s “Hallow Road” begins as an intensely carried out, deftly minimalist household thriller about two dad and mom driving to the scene of their daughter’s accident whereas protecting her on the cellphone. That’s all it’s essential know getting into, and all it is best to actually be taught beforehand, given how this race-against-the-clock premise unfolds, earlier than swerving in utterly unpredictable methods.
Few movies have ever induced such immense tonal whiplash whereas exhibiting such tight formal management over their transformations. There’s a really clear boundary separating the form of film “Hallow Street” begins out as from what it will definitely turns into, which all however cements its place as an enchanting artifact of this yr’s midnight film scene. Some may say it jumps the shark in an effort to obtain this distinction, however as Donald Glover’s character as soon as naively famous on “Group,” “There was an episode of ‘Comfortable Days’ the place a man actually jumped over a shark, and it was one of the best one.” Generally, leaping the shark is superior.
It additionally helps in case your movie is led by Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys, a pair of powerhouse performers who not solely discover a cautious stability between heartbreak and fury, however are tasked with promoting a complete story unfolding off-screen. Pike performs the depressed paramedic Maddie, whereas Rhys performs her problem-solving husband Frank, a middle-aged Welsh couple whose teenage daughter Alice (voiced by Megan McDonnell) has run away after an enormous row.
Amid photographs of automobile lights fluttering by the woods, Anvari lures us into the household’s life with photographs of their dwelling, together with a freshly damaged glass partially swept right into a dustpan, as if we’ve been made aware of the scene of against the law. The fraught threads between Maddie, Frank and Alice are the emotional driving drive, so these are the one particulars we actually have to see. When a distraught Alice calls her dad and mom in the midst of the night time, revealing she hit a younger woman along with her automobile on an remoted forest path, the film tethers us to Maddie and Frank as they discuss Alice by the state of affairs over the cellphone, serving to her hold the sufferer alive whereas making an attempt to discern precisely what transpired.
These preliminary scenes — among the solely ones that happen outdoors the couple’s automobile — are enveloped in a haze of 16mm movie grain, giving “Hallow Street” the looks of a warm-toned home drama. Nonetheless, the second they shut their automobile door and start driving Alice’s manner, the palette and texture shift radically. A clean, chilly, digital façade takes maintain, as if the within of the automobile, the place we spend the next hour and alter, had been a world unto itself, shielded from the skin. It’s a spot the place characters can confess their most intimate ideas (and, if want be, concoct determined, harebrained plans).
The movie unfolds with livewire urgency as Maddie yells CPR directions over the cellphone, and the 2 dad and mom argue about how one can get a fragile, traumatized Alice out of this case, whether or not to contain the police and how one can shield a future that now hangs within the stability. All of the whereas, Anvari and cinematographer Package Fraser make sure the digicam is affixed to the automobile’s inside, capturing every alternate and emotional beat with visible readability (they even delightfully exaggerate cellphone and dashboard lights for emphasis). The drive to Alice’s location is sort of an hour lengthy, a lot of which unfolds in actual time and throughout a number of cellphone calls — a construction positive to remind viewers of Steven Knight’s completed, claustrophobic drama “Locke,” up to some extent. It seems Anvari has one thing devious up his sleeve, dropping solely minor, easy-to-miss hints alongside the best way.
The film’s pivot into style territory is shockingly sudden, and but, it really works like a appeal, because of the exact methods Anvari, Fraser and editor Laura Jennings twist the screws. The once-static digicam comes unglued, as “Hallow Street” takes inexplicable, hilariously jaw-dropping turns befitting of a darkish fairytale. All of the whereas, the movie maintains its unwavering deal with the household’s relationships, in addition to the stresses and anxieties they convey dwelling (and into the automobile). It additionally questions how far Maddie and Frank are keen to go in an effort to rescue Alice from an more and more sticky state of affairs, when it seems she is probably not the one witness to the crime.
Ultimately, the one criticism that may be levied at “Hallow Street” — if solely on reflection — is that the confines of its vehicular setting, together with its reliance on audio to relay Alice’s story, forestall it from leaning full-tilt into its most imaginative parts. Nonetheless, that it dips its toe into this territory in any respect is considerably exceptional, given the easy easy type it initially takes. With its dramatic themes unfold throughout two wildly completely different halves, it makes for a novel, propulsive thrill experience whose baffling existence is vital to its enjoyment.
