Married couple Jackie (Hannah Emily Anderson) and Jules (Brittany Allen) are off on a weekend vacation up in the country home owned by Jackie’s family. It is near a big lake and surrounded by miles of forest. They are literally in the middle of nowhere. Jules is excited, not knowing much about this past part of Jackie’s life, and the two immediately settle into the big, warm cabin, drinking wine and making out. An unexpected visitor from Jackie’s past shows up, old best friend Sarah (Martha MacIsaac), who is surprised to find that Jackie has returned, given her sordid history in the area. Intrigued, Jules wants to know more. She is regaled with tales of hunting and with the drowning death of Jackie and Sarah’s other best friend when they were teens. It seems that there was some suspicion that Jackie was somehow involved in the death. Of course, we quickly find out that Jackie not only was involved, but killed this other girl, and now she has brought Jules here to kill her, as well. Jackie is a psychopath, apparently, and she pushes Jules off a cliff in order to slake her thirst for blood. From there, things get crazier, and to tell more would be spoiling the rest of this film.
A lot of praise has been heaped on this little suspense thriller because it features a lesbian couple in the middle of the type of drama that has always been reserved for a hetero couple. The outlines of the story are the same: husband is crazy, stalks wife to kill her, wife fights back. This film follows that formula, for the most part, but doesn’t add or deviate from it very much, which is disappointing. It would have been more interesting to see this base partner betrayal from a lesbian perspective, but it winds up being just like it would be if a man and woman couple were involved (“Why are you trying to kill me?” “Because I’m crazy, bitch!”). I try not to slag on movies during my reviews because it’s hard to get a movie made, and anyone who makes a competent film gets two stars automatically. This one I was very tempted to give one star (but I will refrain). Here’s the thing: the acting is terrific, the settings are interesting and full of character, and some of the suspense sequences are pretty damned good. But. The story itself is too convoluted and too silly. It was very hard to suspend disbelief during large segments of the middle section. If you want to kill someone, why not just go ahead and do it? There was no reason for the captive cat and mouse games. If Jackie had a propensity to play with her food before eating it, she would have played with Jules much more before the sudden jolt of Jackie shoving Jules off a small cliff. And from there it gets sillier, like the director had to figure out how to flesh the movie out to a full-length running time, so more ludicrous moments were added. And don’t get me started on that “twist” ending. I was so angry I cursed out loud. Yeah, I guess it’s kind of set up earlier in the film, but it comes from out of nowhere and given that Jules is pretty much just being a victim the entire time (screaming, crying, never really trying hard to escape), the moment she turns the tables is too abrupt and, again, convoluted. Also, it’s not very feminist to have one of your main female characters be nothing more than an abused victim for the majority of the running time (unless that was the point, the battered-wife syndrome, but that’s never really spelled-out and Jules was never submissive before all the shit went down, so I dunno). Really, change Jackie’s character to a man and you would have nothing more than a rote, bland, run-of-the-mill thriller.
So yeah, I can’t recommend this. Some people absolutely love it and I guess I understand. But for me, it didn’t do much. Besides the interesting idea of this being about a same-sex married couple, there was nothing interesting going on here. This is a film I’ve seen dozens of times and reeks of those mid-90s woman-in-peril suspense thrillers. If you’re curious, give it a watch, but don’t believe the hype.
★★☆☆