Making her feature debut as writer and director, Alison Star Locke establishes a firm sense of claustrophobia within the premise and setting of The Apology. Nearly the entirety of the film’s action takes place within the house belonging to Darlene (Anna Gunn), and basically the only time we venture outside of it is to check in with the only significant supporting character present who is neither Darlene nor her former brother-in-law Jack (Linus Roache). Otherwise, here is a movie that, for a surprisingly long period of its 92-minute running time, amounts to a conversation between two estranged sort-of family members who have not seen each other in a while. The point is also clear and to the point: Jack needs to confess something to Darlene.
Locke does not waste any time telling us what might be the subject of Jack’s confession, by the way. Twenty years ago, Darlene’s daughter Sally (played on video screens and in photographs by both Esmé McSherry and Holland Bailey) disappeared without a trace. Upon the anniversary of the event, Darlene has given an interview updating the world on the status of the search (though it is essentially a cold case now) and how she has been coping after so long. The answer to that latter question is not simple, of course. Even two decades later, the sting remains, even though the sharpness of it has abated at least a little. Darlene is now at least living a sort of comfortable existence, right next to her best friend in the world Gretchen (Janeane Garofalo).
The holidays are approaching, as are some festivities involving family members set to arrive in a few days. Beating them to the punch is Jack, the brother to Darlene’s ex-husband and someone with whom she has some unspoken and unresolved romantic past. Their words are cautious and careful for a time, as they share a glass of wine and reminisce, but as stated earlier, Jack is not here solely for that reason. It turns out that he has concealed something about the disappearance of his former niece for those two decades, and with the case bubbling up again, he wishes to clear the air.
What follows is perhaps a little too predictable. Of course, Jack had a direct hand in the fate of young Sally, though to what degree will not be revealed here. A little less predictably, the film shifts into a revenge thriller with a good deal of bloody violence and, eventually, physical torment, once Darlene proves herself more capable than Jack thought. The performances from Gunn and Roache are each respectably grueling in the early passages of simply talking things out, from the way Jack finds more and more excuses for his inexcusable and horrifying behavior to how Darlene sees right through all the careful wordplay that Jack uses to justify his actions.
The downfall of The Apology is not in where its heart lay with this story of revenge and righteous anger. It’s in how everything is simplified by violent retribution from and toward characters the film, until that point, has proven to us to be more intelligent and more nuanced than that. A smarter movie would have explored, even in this confined space, the past between these characters, but it is only too happy to turn each of them into a heroine and a villain.
Photo courtesy of RLJE Films
The post The Apology appeared first on Spectrum Culture.