There’s a special kind of stress reserved for those moments going through airport security. Here, everything is rushed. Belts are removed and whipped into buckets on the conveyer and shoes come off hastily as people shuffle along struggling to unhook their necklaces, remove their rings, place their laptop and other electronic items in a separate bin, and on and on and on. Often, it feels as if the security employees are using their x-ray scanners to look into not just your luggage, but also your very soul. It is a perfect place to begin a movie, then, especially for directors who wish to put their viewers on edge right from the start. Aneil Karia understands this, which is why his directorial debut Surge begins here, plunging viewers right into the heart of that familiar airport security transaction, immediately developing a wiry sort of tension that doesn’t let up for the rest of the film.
Joseph (played by the always enigmatic Ben Whishaw) works for airport security, patting down and releasing person after person for hours each day. We watch him soullessly interact with nervous patrons, running wands over their outstretched arms all while the airport noise swells around him. The camera feels too zoomed-in as it frantically moves from Joseph to customers to close-ups of luggage, never once zooming out. This level of intimacy taps right into the film’s anxiety, like a mousetrap begging to be snapped. When Joseph interacts with a seemingly deranged white man who swears the electronic wand is burning his skin, he is visibly disturbed. “What are you waiting for?” the manic and almost gleeful man asks, seemingly inviting Joseph to join him in his madness. The interaction leaves Joseph stunned, but it plants a seed in his brain that grows into his own brand of insanity, thrusting him into a world where anything goes.
On the surface, Surge is a film about a man who is so tired of his dead-end job that he eventually breaks, indulging in a dayslong bender in which he does everything from robbing banks to having rushed sex with his coworker. Whishaw is dazzling in his role as Joseph, leaning into the mania to create a performance that feels like an attempt to outdo Joaquin Phoenix in Joker. But underneath the fast-paced thrill of Surge lies a story far more complex and oftentimes not entirely unpacked. When we are first introduced to Joseph, he is a meek white man who seems to lack the ability to stand up for himself. He is submissive and shy, refusing to interact with the people around him. His daily routine is filled with all the monotony of 21st century living—incessantly ringing cell phones, malfunctioning public transit turnstiles and ATM machines, loud neighbors and finicky Bluetooth connections. He is a man wholly unable to stand up for himself, until one day he does. Or, more accurately, he finally allows himself to indulge in every one of his improper desires, setting off a chain reaction of increasingly crazier events.
What the film gets right is the rage, and Whishaw’s performance expertly delivers a believable breakdown worthy of praise. But while the anger feels spot on, the reasons for it are often left deeply unexplored. Joseph is a character that seems recognizable, especially if you are used to watching news stories filled with angry white men committing violence against unsuspecting people. Between mass shootings and domestic violence, this film feels like it is trying to commit to a message about what happens when society refuses to address toxic masculinity. However, without context for his actions, Joseph edges closer and closer to the category of just another man who lacked the ability to process his own emotions. It is possible, though, that this lack of motive is precisely Karia’s point.
Blazing onto the scene with his all-too-believable short, “The Long Goodbye” starring Riz Ahmed, Karia is no stranger to this specific type of racially fueled violence. In this 11-minute short, he artfully creates a terrifying dystopia in which people of color are ruthlessly rounded up and executed in front of their homes by a terrifying group of angry white men. There is no context given for these men’s rage as they appear seemingly out of nowhere, forcing the women and children into vans at gunpoint and killing the men in the street. The police officers on the scene (who are also white) turn a blind eye to all of this, allowing the senseless massacre to continue. It is a short that feels like a precursor to Surge in that it frames these men’s rage in the same way: entirely senseless and unhinged.
Surge delivers this same sort of meaningless violence on the fringes of the film. All around him, white men fight senselessly with each other on sidewalks and street corners as Joseph travels through the city, and by refusing to provide an actual, concrete motive for Joseph’s rage, Karia seems to be suggesting that Joseph doesn’t need to have a reason to be angry because being white is enough. This point is reinforced by the fact that the people of color within the film never participate in the same level of violence as their white counterparts. Instead, they are often merely subject to Joseph’s rage without ever doing anything to provoke it.
Without the context of “The Long Goodbye,” Surge may appear slightly unrealized to some viewers, but there is no doubt that Karia is trying to make a very specific point. In one particularly jarring scene, Joseph interacts with a young girl on a subway train. He makes strange, slightly lewd faces at her as he reaches out to touch a woman’s faux fur coat—something the girl tried to do earlier before getting chastised by her mother. Joseph’s behavior is unsettling to watch, and not just because the scene is evocative of Whishaw’s performance in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. It is unsettling because while he gives in to his impulse to touch and smell the woman standing in front of him, only the young girl notices. She is too young to comprehend the troubling abnormality of the moment, only able to comprehend Joseph’s actions through her own desire. We must ask ourselves, then, what it is she has learned from this exchange? She, a young girl, was scolded for trying to do the same thing, but Joseph, a white man, gets away with it. It is a scene that feels heavy with significance about violence against women, and its power is a testament to Karia’s skills as a director.
Karia seems dedicated to exploring the vast spectrum of privilege that exists in our societies, and how this privilege can easily be transformed into violent power. Surge is a movie not without its faults, but it is a promising debut from an alluring new director who seems unwilling to back down from telling difficult and important stories.
Photo COURTESY OF PROTAGONIST PICTURES
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