The Occupant

I went into The Occupant (2025) completely blind - no trailer, no synopsis, no expectations. Unfortunately, it didn't matter. What followed was a dull, lifeless experience. The film clearly wants to be clever and cerebral, but instead it's painfully slow, uneventful, and lacking in any real tension or payoff.

This is a weird movie. It felt to me like it was more of a vanity project than a movie made to entertain or make a profit. Its full of long picturesque shots of great scenery, snow, forest, and rock formations, but without much substance or any real depth. The misleading title bares little relevance to whats on offer, and the story is an odd combination of two notions that meld rather poorly.

It's a story essentially of loss, dealing with it and the pain of losing close emotional attachement. Unfortunately, the movie does this by meandering along a path that gets boring quickly and deludes into thinking theres going to be some sort of payoff somewhere, but sadly there isn't any.

The majority if of the movie is spent following our stunningly beautiful lead Ella Balinska as she treks across the wilderness. Very little happens, there's very little development save the flashbacks to her homelife and the short insights were given to her character.

To be fair it's not a terrible movie if you have almost two hours to spare. You could do worse, but its certainly not a good movie, less so an entertaining one. The begining suggests that there was a sci-fi themed thread at play, but this never really pans out. Even though the prelude did seem initially interesting, I was bored twenty minutes in, and this didn't really improve throughout the one hour and forty minute produciton.

There's only a handful of roles on offer here, and essentially the whole movie rests on the shoulders of one actor, Balinska, who to to be fair, gives a pretty solid performance, but it just isn't enough. The tale is a threadbare offering too long, and too abstract.

There is nothing of interest, no payoff and its not even an interesting watch.

In all honesty my advise is to give this one a miss. I don't like to be overly critical with my reviews but there just isn't anything on offer here.

3/10 is all I can manage.

Hugo Keijzer offers us an interesting film that focuses on intrigue with science fiction overtones that immerses us in a personal reflection on letting go.

Starring Ella Balinska as Abby, a guilt-ridden geologist and engineer in transit from her remote mission, she survives a mysterious helicopter crash and must try to escape the harsh environment. But she's not alone . The film is a slow-burning thriller that takes its time between metaphors and science fiction to give us a well-crafted film that manages to hold our attention thanks to its perfect photography by Robbie van Brussel and its locations, in addition to the good work of its protagonist who completely surrenders to the drama her character is going through.

Its director is clever at blending the various genres at his disposal. While the film isn't verbose and has its lesser moments, it manages to deliver a story that captures our attention and makes us understand the final reflection proposed by its script, with an emotional final stretch. The great strength of the film's proposal is the multiple reflective layers with which the film weaves together this slow-burning story, while still keeping you attentive to everything happening on screen.

A rather interesting international effort that manages to deliver some good moments in a film worth giving a try. Well directed, well acted, and with a story that remains interesting, despite its simplicity. This thought-provoking journey and a harrowing premise make for a well-crafted survival thriller.

This film had a decent foundation as well as its concept, but The Occupant falls for the oldest trick in the book when it comes to a science fiction film and that's when they relegate it for filler near the end. Instead its a survival story with a character facing a predicament both physically and figuratively.

Survival stories are usually exciting because you watch a character struggle and dig down deep to survive precarious oppositions and get back to civilization in one piece.

Our lead actress Ella Balinska does try her hardest but her character isn't very interesting on the page, other than the usual guilt riding characteristic. It is also quite slow paced and for a film clocking in at about 100 minutes, it means it could easily have been trimmed in the editing department.

It is however a beautifully shot film from Dutch director Hugo Keijzer, The musical score from Renger Koning is pretty solid as it adds to the film's overall vibe. When you finally get to the pinch of sci-fi this movie holds in the third act, it is enjoyable but too little too late.

Was really hoping for a much better and stronger film, but sometimes you get shortcomings.

Without knowing a single thing about the movie, as I stumbled upon it by random chance, I still opted to watch it and check what director Hugo Keijzer had to offer.

Writers Philip Michael Howe, Hugo Keijzer, Roelof Jan Minneboo and Xiao Tang put together an okay enough script. However, the narrative does struggle a bit with the pacing. Now, there was a lot of potential to "The Occupant", but ultimately the writers didn't fully deliver on that potential.

I literally wasn't familiar with a single actress or actor on the cast list. But that was actually something that spoke in favor of the overall impression of the movie, as I do enjoy watching unfamiliar and new talents on the screen.

The movie does have a lot of nice visual shots, which definitely helped establish the atmosphere and mood of the movie.

"The Occupant" certainly is a watchable movie, but hardly one that I would recommend you to rush out and get to watch. Nor is it a movie that warrants more than a single viewing.

My rating of director Hugo Keijzer's 2025 movie "The Occupant" lands on a generous four out of ten stars.