Hallow Road

I feel a bit gaslit by this one as critics and audience reviews are pretty good but I just didn't connect with it.

Hallow Road takes place in near real time mostly inside of a car as two parents race to the scene of an accident (on "Hallow Road") their daughter has been involved in. I say "near" real time because the drive is only 40 minutes and yet surely takes up longer in the movie as it's ~80%+ of the runtime.

The problem for me is that this felt like a cheap episode of a TV drama that would be shown on ITV. The parents were annoying, particularly the father and the car setting began to get tedious, especially every time the sat-nav told the audience how far we had to go. For some this will rachet up tension and desperation to get there quicker, but for me the journey felt like a slow crawl.

For me the ending left much to be desired. An earlier throwaway line about how the parents "will never find resolution" felt like expectations management from the director - when I heard this I prepared for the worst and was still disappointed. Another cop out ending in a critically acclaimed indie movie? Surely not?!

The second twist is revealed when the lights come up, but this one itself was largely guessable if you were paying attention - but even if you weren't, spelling it out in this fashion felt like an odd bolt-on to the movie. It would have benefitted from being included in the film and not the credits.

Overall Hallow Road is a largely tepid, slightly creepy story of parents rushing to the aid of the child but I now grow weary of so many indie films choosing to use amibiguity as a means to add weight to their story. Sometimes I would just like a tied up ending.

When parents "Maddie" (Rosamund Pike) and husband "Frank" (Matthew Rhys) get a call from their teenage daughter to say she has been in a road accident, they immediately get into their car and head to the quite far distant and remote scene. The rest of the film sees the couple trying to think what is best to do as the paramedic mother tries to help with an immediate problem whilst the father takes a more long-term and sacrificial view in the event of a worst case scenario. Things only get more fraught when another couple encounter "Alice" first and her folks become increasingly concerned that their "help" might only make matters even worse! With only the intensity of their car as the scenario as this all takes place via the telephone, and what I must admit was probably the slowest and/or safest driving to the site of an accident I've ever witnessed on film (or anywhere else, for that matter) we are introduced to a couple with demons galore and a somewhat confused sense of the ridiculous and of their own priorities. It's that very superficiality and flakiness that makes this a bit more potent than your average thriller and at times it has a characterful intensity akin to a late night radio play with limited visuals and audio: just two people and an increasingly effective and frenzied script. Rhys tends to overact a bit but Pike and the gripping pace of the film deliver something that asks what we might do for our kids, but in a much less typical and frankly more pragmatic fashion. It's only eighty minutes long and that really helps to keep the film focussed and though it isn't a film you are likely to recall for very long, it does work well enough on a big screen.

The film was fantastic in places, and highly original in terms of content, but the whole point of the movie was the worry, the panic, and the racing rush from everyone to get to their destination; and yet the man driving could have pushed his car faster. The trees and streetlights passing by the car windows at 4cm-an-hour ruined the panic. How anyone at all can say 'They rushed to the scene' must have a car made of plasticine. The editor also forgot to put the engine noise in, yet dropped it back in on the gear changes - ?

In the categories "disturbingly realistic" and "true nightmares you really don't want to go through yourself", Hallow Road is a film that scores very high. Director Babak Anvari ("I Came By") delivers a very intense and compelling thriller here, even though the story largely takes place in one enclosed location (a car) and has only two main characters (and also a few voices over the phone).

The concept is simple, but that makes it even more efficient. In the middle of the night, parents Maddie and Franck receive a panicky phone call from their teenage daughter Alice. She caused an accident with her father's car. The car is stuck and damaged, but - much worse - there is another girl lying motionless on the road. The parents jump in the car and stay in touch with Alice, but during the long journey the problems pile up. Is the girl who was hit by a car still alive? Where is the ambulance? Why did Alice drive to such a remote place? Was she sober? Will this incident destroy the rest of her life?

There are 2 main reasons why "Hallow Road" is the most haunting and unforgettable thriller you will see this year (and perhaps also in the coming years). First and foremost because it is - simply - a realistic scenario. The chance this horror will happen to yourself, or someone close to you, is much greater than, say, moving into a haunted house or having to fight werewolves and zombies. You read about hit-and-run accidents almost daily, and behind each of these incidents is a tragic story for both sides. Secondly, because Matthew Rhys and - especially - Rosamund Pike give away such incredibly strong performances. Director Anvari felt that the story couldn't just end like a random news fact, and so there are some weird twists in the script towards the end. Still very absorbing, though. The ending is completely open to interpretation, and that too is the best they could have done. Powerful film, recommended!

STAR RATING: ***** Brilliant **** Very Good *** Okay ** Poor * Awful

Maddie (Rosamund Pike), a paramedic, and her husband, Frank (Matthew Rhys), are a middle class couple, who receive a late night phone call from their teenage daughter, Alice (Megan McDonnell), who has been involved in a hit and run incident. The pair race to the scene, keeping in touch on speaker phone, but as they do, tensions erupt between the couple, before things take a sinister turn.

For those not lulled in by the big new Mission: Impossible film, this little (virtually un) publicised film might be a decent distraction. After checking the running time, it becomes quickly evident that it's another addition from the 'real time' staple (with events playing out exactly as they occur with no cuts) , the last I can remember being Paul Andrew Williams's 2010 effort Cherry Tree Lane.

In a film with pretty much only two cast members, Pike and Rhys play well off each other, and develop an effective chemistry as a couple with conflicting approaches and attitudes towards their daughter, and what may have led to and how to resolve her current predicament. Likewise, McDonnell does well in a voiceover role, descending further into distress and disbelief while her happy, carefree profile picture stares back at us. It's all genuinely compelling and inspired , until an unwelcome supernatural element is added to the story that detracts from the realism of the events. Indeed, it's at this late point that we suddenly learn the film is set at Halloween (which may have been foreshadowed by the Hallow in the title.)

It remains genuinely suspenseful until the end, which comes in not the most comprehensible fashion, with matters feeling unresolved. Could have been highly recommendable, if it had just stayed on track. ***