Don't Look Now!

Rating: 5/10 (15 January 2019)

The successful premise of 'A Quiet Place' was in the conceit of silence, a cast-iron guarantee of evoking suspense. Seeing, or in the case of 'Birdbox', not looking, lacks this promise. This film has no suspense, no tension, we never doubt the Superwoman qualities of Sandra Bullock, her Lara Croft propensity to overcome horrendous adversity. She is locked and loaded, literally, against all odds, a female Rambo in an inexplicable dystopia. At worst, she will be martyred, and we might be filled with pity, but not terror, the proper pay-off in any horror offering. However, I liked the motherhood trope, her journey to acceptance and maternal responsibility, sadly only sporadically fleshed out. Some risible scenes tested the viewer's credulity: how our heroine and Olympia contrived to break water at exactly the same time, and of course the farcical jaunt down the breaking rapids of Colorado, blindfolded. Even Burt Reynolds in Deliverance needed both hands and eyes on the wheel. And who is their right mind decided to build that blind school there! I did admire the clever simplicity of the denouement, and kicked myself after for failing to see that real blindness must play a part. I thought the shoot out was unnecessary and crude, and reduced Tom's role to mere hitman for the heroine. The children did not behave like children, and were scarily robotic. These reservations apart, this film is worth the candle, albeit a cheap penny one.