Into the Forest

This movie has some really convincing performances. Ellen Page is great, the depth of her emotions are intense and believable. Evan Rachel Wood is also really good, she does her sensitive character a lot of justice and portrays a vividly brutal scene with real honesty. This movie is unsettling because it is all too possible. What happens when we are suddenly left without power is shocking - we are plunged into a lawless past, with no protection. This movie really conveys that well, and at the same time explores the theme of what it means to be a family. I was moved to tears several times. The forest setting is lush and beautiful. The direction was good - the pace was tense and believable, the only slow part I didn't care for were some of the love scenes in the beginning, and the dance scenes were pretty dispensable, but all in all I really liked it!

This film is not a survival thriller. It is a deep and profound symbological tale that can only be understood allergorically. Except that some of the ideas underlying the film are kind of obscure and confusing (on an allegorical level.) The best stories work by being universally understood on a subconscious level. So the film is really only partially successful as allegory.

If Teen Vogue made a remake of Temps Du Loup, this is what it would look like. It's not bad but for an connaisseur of dystopian & post apocalyptic fiction I tell you this will not be a classic. For a film about two sisters, one Lycra clad and fashionable, the other boyish living in a glass house in a forest in the midst of a disaster of world wide proportions the film is lacking the sense of emergency and impending doom you would expect in this scenario. When disaster hits one has major issues to solve (like bickering about music, ballet audits and mold) before even finding out what kind of disaster has occurred. After fighting off intruders, living on rations for months you know what will finally drive you out? Mold!

Without getting into all of the other hot topics that this film engenders, as an Alaskan I can say that from a purely survival aspect they wouldn't make it a winter. And in fact if this was supposed to be anywhere in Canada where was winter? It always seemed green. There are few berries in winter. Unless they lived in a fairly substantial house they would freeze to death. And there is very little food apart from hunting in the winter. And they certainly did not learn enough to survive simply from books. They would run out of ammo soon. They showed no skill at creating tools or salvaging them. And certainly none at basic house repair. In fact I would say they were just about the unhandiest women I've seen in the woods. Essentially this was just an emotionally acted fantasy without much basis in the real world. Kind of a shame. I had hoped for more.

If you are a fan of the apocalyptic survival genre you will enjoy the movie until the last 5 minutes. The ending is poorly conceived, totally unrealistic and flat out stupid.