A grieving woman hoping to find solace deep in an isolated forest encounters a stranger who injects her with a paralytic agent.
As the agent gradually takes over her body, she must run, hide, and fight for her life before her entire nervous system shuts down. So here I am, left baking in the sun in the middle of a field, just like Iris in the Netflix thriller Don't Move. She's attacked and is now trying to get away before her body goes kaput.
Kelsey Asbile and Finn Wittrock star in this, where Asbile is Iris, this grieving mom who's attacked by some random dude. Now for the story, this is fairly predictable once the impetus kicks in. And from there, it becomes a fairly rote and standard pursuit film.
Asbile is quiet through a lot of this, even before she's injected. So it's not easy to connect with her fully. We're shown enough and given enough context for her mindset to understand her emotional state.
But outside of some natural sympathy, she's just an anonymous potential victim. Finn Wittrock plays Richard, and while he has a lot more speaking parts within the story, he's also mostly a stranger to us, thanks to enigmatic reveals and exposition. I enjoyed his portrayal because he's just matter of fact in so many ways, negating emotion in favor of decisive action.
He can also switch up emotions and expressions in an instant and also convincingly display them. He's not a chameleon necessarily, but very adept at reading a situation and then conforming to what's needed to get his goals accomplished. Now, I enjoyed the tension we watch play out because there's literally a ticking clock to Iris's ability to continue her escape.
Whatever she's injected with is going to take effect in a specified amount of time. And this creates immediacy and urgency, which then increases the suspense. And the apprehension comes, even though we can guess at so many of the ensuing actions.
The way the camera is placed just creates an intimate and relatable point of view where we're seeing the world from Iris's perspective, complete with visual effects that cause the imagery to bend and waver a little the more the injection takes effect. There's also an ongoing series of actions Iris does that illustrate the drug's effect. And I can appreciate how this allows us to see the progression, but it's also not done subtly.
So the lack of nuance does come across as if the audience can't determine what's going on. I didn't mind the visuals, I just wish they weren't as overtly displayed for us. The action sequences are also captured in ways that create harrowing excitement.
As Iris becomes more incapacitated, she encounters more and more difficulties when it comes to moving and functioning. But kind of like when Chris Farley falls down the mountain in Black Sheep, if Iris has created momentum and then can't move, the inertia will continue to propel her without her having the ability to react. And this can have devastating effects on her well-being.
But in return, it also elevates the anxiety and action for us as the audience. The story is pretty concise at just 92 minutes. There's not a lot of fat here, but that also means that much of the character development is also thin.
And if we just look at this as a pursuit film, the backgrounds, they're not hugely important. But with that being said, certain character aspects are introduced and then go mostly unaddressed. So we're left with many questions that just hang and can create niggles for us.
Ultimately, I don't think that all sorts of information and backstory are needed on this particular character, but to get it would help to make them more visceral in our feeling of them. Now, something I appreciate in the storytelling is that we're introduced to other characters who showcase some intuition and smarts. I mean, so often we get dumb or oblivious people who frustrate the plot because they don't display common sense.
Here, though, even if they are sparse interactions, there's natural inquisitiveness that makes sense and then ends up accentuating the stress of a certain situation. Now, if you enjoy action, this also has some small bursts of violence that are a bit shocking at their brutality. The scenes, they're not extended or even overly gratuitous, but they do showcase some encounters that you can kind of feel as they happen.
So overall, Don't Move is an exhilarating thriller with a unique premise filled with anxious pursuit. The story lacks character development and skimps on details it introduces, but does showcase some intelligent and observant characters who work to increase the tension of the storytelling. The general trajectory of the story is obvious and predictable, but still manages to create exciting momentum thanks to an established time limit and creative visual effects.
The film is enjoyable as a one-time watch, but don't expect to be dwelling on the story after it ends. I'd rate Don't Move three out of five stars.
Sources of images IMDB