Let me preface this review by stating this film is firmly in the drama genre camp. It is not a horror film and it is not a thriller. It is a slow-burn with a lot of suspense, and the tension starts from the very first frame till the last. I say all this to temper any expectations because if you go into this movie with the correct reference point, it will richly reward you. If you are looking for a hack-and-slash gore-fest with a dizzying body count, you will not enjoy it.
The main theme of the film is how someone experiences a trauma so horrorfying, it creates a paralyzing obsession that is all-consuming. In this case, the protagonist, Tanner, is poisoned by a man, but then is obsessed the man is going to come back and poison him again. He cannot eat any food that is not sealed and store-bought - so no cooking anything fresh. He cannot hold down a job and his marriage is hanging on by a thread as his devoted wife trys to navigate their relationship and his crippling OCD.
The story unfolds in an uncannily organic way. Treating severe OCD in a film can be easily over-wrought with excessive cliches and exaggerations. But not here. The director's steady hand lets Tanner's condition in the narrative breath and develop in a way that grips you and pulls you in in such a deliberate way, that you viscerally feel his pain and angst. I never once felt overwhelmed by the depiction, but yet was completely immersed in it along with Tanner. The story and direction is nearly flawless.
The acting from the two main characters punches way above its weight class for an independent film. If this were a bigger production from a well-known studio, there would be award buzz here. The supporting cast wasn't as good, but they did a good enough job to keep you engaged.
Finally, you really don't know how the story is going to end. Yes, you can have a general sense of how some paths might play out, but ultimately, the film ends in a somewhat unexpected way. Towards the latter half of the 3rd act, some truly bonkers twists happen that literally had my mouth on the floor. Yes, I had a couple of WTF moments. What made it the more delicious is, you do not expect any of these plot twists because the director has cleverly laid out a linear, straightforward path for 2 1/2 acts, so you have a built in expectation of where the story is going. For most of the movie you know exactly what's happening and where it's going because the director has not, deviated from a standard story-telling format. So when the twists come, they are as jarring as they are unexpected.
See this movie. I think it's one of those rare movie, that if you connect with it, it touches you all the way to your inner core.
