The Grove doesn’t have a story so much as it has an idea. Come to think of it, it doesn’t have much of an idea, either – more like a single thought in its head. Even that ends up being too much for multi-hyphenate filmmaker Acoryé White, who co-directed, co-wrote and co-edited the film (and even, according to the credits, served as a costume designer, an executive producer and in the casting department). The term “multi-hyphenate” is invoked for a reason here; it’s obvious that White, who has racked up a few acting credits within the last few years, including as the film’s protagonist (to whatever degree there is one), really wanted to tell this story. Everything beyond that step in the development process, though, is baffling.
The first reason is that it is essentially incoherent on a fundamental level, which is surprising to consider when the story is so pared down as to be comprised of a single idea like this. White stars as TJ, who has recently undergone some kind of testing by a highly secretive government agency. As “Dr. Jane,” Haley Sims plays the representative of that cohort, a doctor who might as well be the only person in her department. As the movie opens, TJ has been dealing with recent gastrointestinal side effects of some medicine that is extremely hush-hush. Unfortunately, this happens at the very moment he has decided to return home to his fiancée, Alice (Psalms).
That’s the gist, essentially, except that White and co-writer/director Patrycja Kepa find increasingly exasperating ways of building on this simple idea and premise without ever introducing a reason to care. TJ and Alice are joined for a big house party by their respective best friends, Chris (Carl Anthony Payne II) and Imani (Guxci), plus a few others (played by Jolena Wu, Alestair Shu, Jesus Venegas, Anuschka Van Lent and Graham Edmonds), who might as well be interchangeable for all they add to the proceedings. It’s unfortunate timing because the medicine is not normal, even for the likes of experimental government medicine. Something else is at work in that medical office.
Anybody who has ever seen a movie will have an idea of what’s coming here, since there can be only one outcome for TJ after his fateful doctor’s visit. The problem, which becomes clear rather quickly, is that White has conceived of a short film with this premise and labored over how to expand it into a feature (a long one, too, at 109 minutes – including credits). It becomes a chamber drama about these characters, of sorts, but not in a way that could be considered compelling. There are a few revelations for each of them, but because they’re all ciphers to us—and because no actor gives a performance that approaches sincerity—it is impossible to care about any of what happens.
It’s also all at the service of an eventual sci-fi-horror angle, as the purpose of the medicine and the agency’s mission makes itself known in a disastrous third act that juggles stifling exposition, a stinger for a sequel unlikely ever to see the light of day and a payoff that involves an action sequence lit so murkily that the great majority of it might as well have been a black screen. The Grove doesn’t know what it wants to say and, unfortunately, says nothing with its utterly pedestrian craft.
Photo courtesy of Anchored Lens Productions
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