The Apology

After twenty years of sobriety a grieving mother finally learns the truth about what happened to her daughter who's has been missing as long as her sobriety by a very unlikely person who shows up at her home to confess to her everything that happened to her daughter. With a very small budget and cast, this was a decent and very quick story of a missing person reveal. I was actually ready to turn it off because I thought it was going no where but after the reveal of the daughter's demise, my interest piqued and I decided to stay engaged and watch to the end. A dialog film more than a visual meaning that you could easily just listen and not watch the film and still manage to follow the story without missing anything. Not sure why it fell under the genre of horror and thriller because it's neither. It's a suspense dialog in one place with a cast of three people done proper. And let me just add one more thing, some family members are absolute trash and sometimes end up being your worst enemy.

This is not a Shudder horror movie, but it is excellent drama by first-class actors around a horrifying subject.

It reminded my husband and me a little of when we first started watching David Mamet's movies. At first, you're a little taken aback, because all of his characters speak in such a way that the words, not the emotional delivery, convey the power of the moment, so that when you first start watching a Mamet film, you think for a moment, "What's wrong with all these people?", and then the magic clicks, and you're entranced.

Not that Locke's style in anyway copies Mamet, it's all her own. Nevertheless, we had a similar experience with this movie. At first, we wondered why these wonderful actors seemed a little awkward, and then suddenly what was being conveyed clicked, and we were caught up.

Excellent film.

Darlene Hagen (Anna Gunn) is still struggling 20 years after the disappearance of her daughter Sally. Jack Kingsley (Linus Roache) comes by claiming car trouble. In fact, he has a dark secret to reveal. Her friend Gretchen Sullivan (Janeane Garofalo) joins the horrific gathering.

New filmmaker Alison Locke is trying to write and direct a low budget feature. I don't know how, but she got three solid actors to do this. They make this as interesting as possible. The script isn't much. It has one surprise in the first half and the second half struggles. It has no more twists or turns to keep the interest. Mostly, this concept needs a few additions to keep it going all the way to the end.

This isn't a horror film. It's barely a thriller. This is a generally a two person play they decided to film. The main character is hosting family Christmas after 20 years. She also lost her daughter, 16, 20 years ago who simply disappeared. Her ex-brother-in-law arrives unexpectedly, and this starts the drama. Unfortunately, the drama is a two person morality play of contrived dialogue and weakest of characterizations. This film triggers a lurid reaction to watch to the end, but only to see if any truth is found. Along the way, information that is meant to shock us is disclosed, and secrets are shared. All leading to the ending that is supposed to build faith in humanity? What I found was grief that goes without processing leads to dissatisfied and unhappy lives. Could have done something better with the 90 minutes.

This is a script which seems to have just gone ahead and filmed the second draft.

Anna Gunn; she's good. She's much more thank Skyler White. Jeneane Garafalo is always worthy of a watch - she's completely wasted here. Linus Roache does a great job playing both sleazy and urbane. That's pretty much been his whole career.

But the dialogue- ugh- way too much exposition and it was all delivered so awkwardly. The writer/director just didn't seem to believe the audience could fill in blanks using context or other means.

Perhaps that was something the producers insisted on?? But, audiences are not stupid (for the most part), and we can gather clues ourselves.

If you're looking for a good single-setting drama, there are far worse out there.