Jessica (Jules Willcox) is packing up her life and moving on. She is a recent widower who has put her whole world into the back of her aged Volvo station wagon with a U-Haul trailer fastened to the back. She was ready to leave her couch behind on the sidewalk but doe to a lack of space a floor to ceiling houseplant suffered the same fate as well. Jessica sets up the GPS on her smartphone then heads out on the road. The Highway is winding mainly two-lane traffic. Jessica is making good time until she comes up behind a slow-moving Jeep Cherokee. She attempts to pass, he speeds up almost running her into a transport truck going the other way. Now he's riding her bumper forcing her to turn off the road. Later that night he drives by as she is pumping gas worried she pulls into a motel for the night.
Director John Hyams working with writer Mattias Olsson brings to the screen a story the viewer may find themselves frustrated within the opening sections. The Man (Marc Menchaca ) keeps popping up knocking on her window, his arm in a sling trying to engage. Jessica has many opportunities to remover herself from the situation that she just does not take. Eventually, she finds herself captive in a cabin where her purposefulness begins to kick in as she begins to make the right decisions battling with a man who has done this before in the woods of Oregon.
Federico Verardi's lens captures several crisp driving scenes at night. He takes advantage of the light coming through the solitary window in Jessica's basement prison in the cabin but it's his work in the forest capturing the details for the foliage the texture of the leaves and the thickness and wetness of the ground, mud, and clay. He also employs a wonderful technique of changing the point of focus from Jessica to other travelers stopping at a rest stop as she has a cigarette smoke billowing building momentum until the inevitability of The Man's appearance.
Jules Willcox is in just about every frame of the film as Jessica. She is quite naive at first, slow to catch on an grasp the urgency of the situation but undergoes a change locked in the basement of the cabin. Once in the woods she builds courage, begins to think on her feet as her natural survival instincts kick in. She becomes a formidable foe for Sam who sees her as weak as any of his past victims to his detriment
Alone has some high points of suspense, conflict, and sadness as our protagonist continues to grieve over the loss of her partner. However, the story has some dips and some pacing issues that could lose some viewers. Menchaca of Ozark fame does not fit the mold as the tormentor which could be an advantage but the pivotal moment and how they get there misses the mark especially if Jessica is dealing with a seasoned killer.
**1/2 Out of 4
Alone | John Hyams | U.S.A. | 2020 | 98 Minutes.
Tags: Widower, U-Haul, Moving, G.P.S.,The Road, Road Rage, Kidnapping, Prisoner, Puncture Wound, River, Rapids, Hunter, Fight or Flight, Helicopter, Goat Cheese and Honey.
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