← Back to Reviews
in
Significant Other, 2023
Ruth (Maika Monroe) and Harry (Jake Lacy) go on a hiking trip up a remote mountain. What should be a romantic getaway instead brims with tension as Harry clearly wants to get married, while an anxious Ruth deflects these overtures. But their relationship issues get shifted to a different gear when they discover something otherworldly in the forest.
A disconnect between the horror and dramatic elements leaves this film spinning its wheels.
There are a lot of parts of this film that work, that would be shocking if they did not work. This is a movie, like so many these days (and I’m NOT complaining), that takes place in a gorgeous, color-saturated forest. And you couldn’t ask for better than Monroe or Lacy, both very good in their roles as people we always must suspect are not quite right and/or not even themselves. Monroe is, at this point, a total go-to for a performance that is spikey and vulnerable, on-edge but strong. Lacy brings a perfect nice-guy-but-menacing energy to his role.
There’s also a nice stretch of the film, especially in the first third, where details and explanations are tantalizingly withheld and we are forced to guess at the motivations and intentions of the different characters. It layers an unreliable setting on top of an unreliable protagonist, and it’s relatively effective in generating tension.
Unfortunately, at a certain point the movie does start explaining, and things quickly go downhill from there. The problem isn’t so much what we’re told as it is where the film tries to go with that information. Horror can be used incredibly effectively to examine ideas about fear, identity, trust, and any other number of emotional, personal issues. But what the movie chooses to do once its concept is fully revealed . . . woof.
And the disappointing final third stings all the more because this film evoked, for me, at least 4 other movies with similar ideas and settings that simply worked much better. I wish the movie had managed to maintain the eerie weirdness and uncertainty that defines the first third. Instead, the actors are trapped in an increasingly redundant and frustrating sequence of events and interactions.
Probably worth a look for horror fans or those who like Monroe and/or Lacy, but beware the disappointing second half.
Significant Other, 2023
Ruth (Maika Monroe) and Harry (Jake Lacy) go on a hiking trip up a remote mountain. What should be a romantic getaway instead brims with tension as Harry clearly wants to get married, while an anxious Ruth deflects these overtures. But their relationship issues get shifted to a different gear when they discover something otherworldly in the forest.
A disconnect between the horror and dramatic elements leaves this film spinning its wheels.
There are a lot of parts of this film that work, that would be shocking if they did not work. This is a movie, like so many these days (and I’m NOT complaining), that takes place in a gorgeous, color-saturated forest. And you couldn’t ask for better than Monroe or Lacy, both very good in their roles as people we always must suspect are not quite right and/or not even themselves. Monroe is, at this point, a total go-to for a performance that is spikey and vulnerable, on-edge but strong. Lacy brings a perfect nice-guy-but-menacing energy to his role.
There’s also a nice stretch of the film, especially in the first third, where details and explanations are tantalizingly withheld and we are forced to guess at the motivations and intentions of the different characters. It layers an unreliable setting on top of an unreliable protagonist, and it’s relatively effective in generating tension.
Unfortunately, at a certain point the movie does start explaining, and things quickly go downhill from there. The problem isn’t so much what we’re told as it is where the film tries to go with that information. Horror can be used incredibly effectively to examine ideas about fear, identity, trust, and any other number of emotional, personal issues. But what the movie chooses to do once its concept is fully revealed . . . woof.
And the disappointing final third stings all the more because this film evoked, for me, at least 4 other movies with similar ideas and settings that simply worked much better. I wish the movie had managed to maintain the eerie weirdness and uncertainty that defines the first third. Instead, the actors are trapped in an increasingly redundant and frustrating sequence of events and interactions.
Probably worth a look for horror fans or those who like Monroe and/or Lacy, but beware the disappointing second half.