★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
Director Dan Trachtenberg and producer J.J. Abrams flip a middle
finger in the face of hype culture with this startling mystery thriller that emerged
almost from nowhere. Originally titled The
Cellar, Trachtenberg’s debut feature bears a last minute title change and –
in the spirit of Abrams’ production company, Bad Robot – is repackaged as a cinematic
mystery box, with minimal teaser footage withheld until two months prior to
release.
We begin with Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Michelle fleeing her
home. Glancing away from the road for a split second to turn up the radio
(hoping to drown out her husband’s urgent calls), she is hit by another driver
and careers off the road. She awakens in an underground bunker, presided over
by Howard (John Goodman), a lumbering control-freak who informs her that an
attack has left the outside world uninhabitable. Sharing the immaculately
prepared space is Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.), a believer in Howard’s tale who helped
construct the shelter years before ‘the event’.
I entered the cinema to watch this with a canned drink and a
small chocolate bar. I emerged, two hours later, with the chocolate untouched and
the can crushed beyond recognition. 10
Cloverfield Lane is pure cinematic striptease: a slow, deliberate
unravelling of small details, building the tension with every delicate move
until the final display. Jeff Cutter’s claustrophobic cinematography is sly disclosure,
the sound design is a broiling flame of anticipation, whilst Bear McCreary’s
score is the tick-tocking prelude to an unknown conclusion.
What a glorious relief it is to see a film that refuses to
spoon-feed an audience; the teasers withdrew from revealing basic plot details,
and the finished picture, too, exists in a continuous realm of uncertainty. Alfred
Hitchcock famously described suspense as two people sat conversing with a bomb
under the table. Neither participant knows the bomb is there, but the audience
does. Trachtenberg flips this marvellously on its head: all three inhabitants
of the bunker believe something dangerous lies above, but the audience can
never be sure. Is Howard telling the truth? Is he just a paranoid freak? Or is
Michelle the paranoid one?
Winstead towers as a lead, and Michelle is a freshly intelligent
role that gives the ‘dumb horror protagonist’ cliché a deft blow to the head.
In both name and appearance, she closely resembles Chell, the main playable
character of Valve’s Portal series; a
white vest-clad woman who trades in wit and invention, joined in her
search for clues by the player, or in this case, the audience.
Goodman similarly impresses: while his performance bears the
imposing presence we’ve come to expect, the key to understanding Howard lies in
the small askance looks bookending his explanations, or maybe in his bizarre
denial of Michelle’s gender identity. Emmett is the one slight misstep, given
only the briefest of development to avoid disrupting the taut interplay between
his co-stars. Regardless, Gallagher Jr. inhabits the character effectively as
all three wend their distrustful, nail-chewing way towards the climax.
When the denouement is
revealed, connections to the original Cloverfield
are peripheral yet ingenious: it could be understood in any number of ways, both in the film
universe and out. What we find within the latest of Abrams’ puzzle chests
is another elaborate enigma; one that intrigues, teases, and leaves you
shuddering with fear and excitement.
