• What an opening– Rosamund Pike’s voice-over with a great “predators and prey”, “lions and lambs” speech. This is her best vehicle since 2014’s Gone Girl– she clearly excels at playing these icy, psychotic characters
  • Slow-motion and montage heavy
  • From her wide eyes and carefully arranged hair to her cycling and vaping. Blakeson and Pike are creating a character
  • Indie god Macon Blair is in the cast, as is veteran Dianne Wiest (with her first archiveable film since 2010’s Rabbit Hole). Chris Messina (playing the lawyer) has an amazing scene with Pike. They are like two cowboys threatening each other.
  • Peter Dinklage is a key casting choice as well. He has such screen presence. A highlight is a shot of him with symmetrically arranged lampshades and matching wallpaper behind him
  • the narrative is very engaging and the dialogue strong. The film is not perfect- it really doesn’t know what to do in terms of making Pike’s character a villain or hero. Blakeson goes back to the voice-over at the end making for a nice bookend—but he clearly doesn’t know how to end the movie
  • Recommend but not in the top 10 of 2020