Somewhere Quiet

Stumbling upon the 2023 movie "Somewhere Quiet" here in 2024, by random luck, and seeing it was a movie that I hadn't heard about, much less seen, then of course I opted to sit down and watch it and see what writer and director Olivia West Lloyd had to offer.

The movie's synopsis definitely sounded interesting enough, I will say that much. However, I found the narrative to be somewhat slow paced and confusing. Sure, the storyline had some interesting aspects to it, and I guess that writer and director Olivia West Lloyd managed to portray the mental breakdown of Meg rather well.

One of the drawbacks to the narrative in "Somewhere Quiet" is that the audience is left with a bunch of unanswered questions throughout the course of the narrative. But writer and director Olivia West Lloyd definitely was on to something interesting and good here with this 2023 mystery thriller.

The movie has a rather small cast ensemble, and I wasn't familiar with the actors and actresses, except for actress Marin Ireland. But it should be noted that the acting performances were good, and leading actor Kentucker Audley (playing Scott) and Jennifer Kim (playing Meg) carried the movie quite well.

I have to applaud Jennifer Kim for her performance in the movie, because it was really great. Her performance as Meg really made up for a somewhat weird and a little bit confusing narrative.

"Somewhere Quiet" was listed as a thriller and horror, but it is in fact a mystery thriller.

My rating of "Somewhere Quiet" lands on a six out of ten stars and Jennifer Kim is really the driving force behind this movie.

I'm glad I just saw this on Paramount and clicked play. I thought don't read ratings, just go for it like when we'd rent a video tape back in the day without knowing everyone's opinion on it.

And I'm glad I did that, as I probably would have skipped it if I'd seen the low rating. But I'd miss a well executed, tense psychodrama.

The lead actress is great, the story constantly keeps you guessing and the music deserves note.

The cover image Paramount used of a ghostly woman staring at a house with windows lit up red has no relation to the movie at all - and I can see some people expected this to be horror. That image would have reinforced that belief. But this movie is not horror, and points to the studio not knowing how to market it. And as they often do, then mis-market it and expectations are not met and low ratings ensue.

The only reason I didn't give it a 7/10 was there were some plot elements that were left unresolved or were too mysterious.

I don't mind ambiguity, but you need to sometimes give viewers something more to work with even if they don't all interpret it the same way. You need viewers to be debating apples vs pears, not apple vs rocks. Looking at some of the radically different views online to me that's more of a mis-match - people are clutching at straws as there wasn't enough to underpin the narrative in places.

And I think that's a failure of too many visions/dreams, which undermined the very real and shifting sands between the characters.

It's a rather simple story along the lines of Gaslight. Or is it? Mwah-hahaha. You'll get the idea. And then again you won't because there are so many little things that are just left unexplained.

Like the whole cousins thing. And the fishing dude. And the roadkill. The bed lady. Who dun the thing that caused the issue to begins with? Why was the dog named Minnow? The game of Charades and the dinnerware connection. And pretty much everything. To the point where you won't know up from down.

But I suppose that is the point.

Of course the entire time you will be looking at the lead actoring guy (whose fake real world name is Kentucker Audley - yes, he's a pretentious mumblecore filmmaker) and you will be thinking "hey, that's not Logan Marshall Green - who is also not Tom Hardy".

And now this was something somewhat different that has been watched by me.

Somewhere Quiet has a woman who has been kidnapped but now safe arrive at her husband's rural family home in Cape Cod. She is struggling with her emotional stability after her ordeal. He appears unprepared for the realities of her situation and state of mind. Also present is his female cousin who presents an odd approach that is demeaning and dismissive of the protagonist.

What unfolds is the internal trauma of the protagonist's psychological grasp of reality in context of a wealth disparity, and the colonialism bias of White Old School Wealth. This creates for heavy complications as the protagonist tries to understand what is occurring around her.

The tension builds steadily through the film, and the lens of reality becomes confused as the protagonist isn't certain what is real. And it works as a personal psychological thriller. The cousin has a benign malevolent demeanor, the husband either seems incompetent or malicious; both actors do well in these contrary roles. The protagonist creates a captivating portrait of a woman damaged and fighting for herself.

An absolute waste of 2 hours. Nothing is resolved and the entire movie makes zero sense nor is any part of the plot explained. It's basically 2 hours of a guy sighing and the main character having random dreams that have nothing to do with the story. Avoid at all costs unless you like watching movies where you are constantly fast forwarding because the scenes are drug out so long where nothing happens. This movie should never have been made. This is even worse than the Netflix movies. I would rate this travesty zero stars if I could but even that would be too many. I feel dumber for having watched this and I award you no points.