THE STORY – The clock is ticking. A woman alone in the forests of Big Sur must escape a serial killer with just 20 minutes left before her body completely shuts down.
THE CAST – Kelsey Asbille, Finn Wittrock & Daniel Francis
THE TEAM – Adam Schindler & Brian Netto (Directors), T.J. Cimfel & David White (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 92 Minutes
Every once in a blue moon, a thriller comes along with a concept so clever and yet so obvious that it’s a wonder no one has thought of it already. Enter “Don’t Move,” which has one hell of a trailer hook: A man (Finn Wittrock) has kidnapped a woman (Kelsey Asbille) – who has been suffering so much following the death of her son from falling off a mountain while she wasn’t looking that she was going to throw herself off that same mountain – and given her a powerful sedative. He explains the exact way her body will react – at minute one, she will start to lose fine motor skills, followed by the use of her legs at minute fifteen and her voice at minute twenty. She can try to run and get lost in the woods that surround them, but he will find her sooner rather than later. Now, she must figure out not only how to survive but if she even wants to.
Yes, that only accounts for twenty minutes of a full-length feature, but even after that twenty minutes, you’re left with a protagonist who can’t move or speak while fighting for their life, which is an exciting prospect that can go in any number of directions. Unfortunately, after laying out the rules of the sedative, screenwriters T.J. Cimfel and David White throw them out almost immediately, ruining some of the fun. The man dosed our heroine, Iris, with the drug while she was knocked out for an undetermined amount of time, making it impossible to play along with how much time she has before the first marker. It’s difficult to play along after that, too, as some obvious jump cuts let us know that things aren’t entirely taking place in real-time. That can’t help but feel like a disappointment, but at least directors, Brian Netto and Adam Schindler keep the tension high with some clever use of cinematography and sound to put the audience in Iris’s shoes. During the film’s second half, when Iris loses her voice and is essentially immobilized, they also get impressive mileage out of the slightest changes on Asbille’s face. A terrifying moment with a lawnmower leads to her being found by an older man, but how can she communicate what’s happening to her? At every turn, Iris makes intelligent choices, making it easy to root for her, even if many things that happen push the suspension of disbelief past the breaking point.
Asbille and Wittrock do their part to make the film work, investing these character sketches with as much personality as they can. The film as a whole is a metaphor for how grief can literally immobilize you, and Asbille makes Iris’s pain potently palpable throughout. Much of the film’s second half rests entirely on her face, and even though she’s slack-jawed, Iris’s fear, despair, and hope shine through in her eyes. Wittrock has always excelled in roles that allow him to turn his all-American looks on their head, exposing what lies beneath that diamond-cut jawline and clean-cut appearance. This role fits squarely into his wheelhouse. He’s incredibly charming at the start, seemingly genuinely interested in stopping Iris from jumping to her death while not pushing too hard. Wittrock makes it clear to the audience that he’s reading Iris, trying to learn what makes her tick, even though she’s too caught up in her grief to notice. Once the other shoe drops, he’s all methodical, stone-cold menace until things stop going according to his plan. The more desperate he becomes, the more the cracks in his facade begin to show, but Wittrock never turns into a screaming, leering, wide-eyed caricature of a villain. He smartly underplays, mixing some surprising notes of fear and regret as the film gets more ridiculous in its last act.
When a film’s central performances are worthy of a truly killer thriller, it’s frustrating when the film around them isn’t at their level. “Don’t Move” has all the elements in place to get there, but it never quite rises to Abille and Wittrock’s level. Whether that’s due to the ultimate thinness of the film’s concept or the filmmakers’ inability to truly capitalize on that concept is up to the viewer, but the reason is immaterial. “Don’t Move” is a disappointment either way.