Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys anchor Hallow Road (now streaming on Hulu), playing frantic parents on their way to help their daughter in peril. It’s more than a two-hander, essentially a two-and-a-half-hander, as the story sort of plays out in real time, the leads engaging in harried phone calls with the girl as they drive to the scene. Babak Anvari directs and William Gillies writes a taut thriller that’s in and out in less than 80 minutes – and offers a reveal in the text of the end credits, so word to the wise, hold your urinary horses for a minute once the final scene fades out.
HALLOW ROAD: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: A partially eaten casserole congealing on the dinner table, broken glass on the floor partially swept up, a father asleep head-on-desk in his daughter’s room, her bed empty – evidence of a rough night for this family. The wine glasses seem more half-empty than half-full. Maddie (Pike) is awakened by the sound of a chirping smoke detector. She pads through the house past the mess and futzes with the battery and – the phone rings. It’s Alice (Megan McDonnell), and she’s upset. Something happened. Frank (Rhys) wakes up. Maddie keeps Alice on the phone and pulls on some clothes and shoes and Frank wants to know what happened but Maddie keeps shushing him. He gets in the driver’s seat and Maddie climbs in and he looks at the GPS. Where are they going? Hallow Road. It happened on Hallow Road.
It’s a remote wooded locale, a 40ish-minute drive – a torturous amount of time sure to pass very slowly in this context where concerned parents can only manage the situation so much by shouting at a speakerphone while their daughter hyperventilates on the other end of the line. See, Alice was driving on this long dark road alone when she hit a girl who ran out onto the road. Maddie, a paramedic, gives Alice step-by-step CPR instructions, but it’s not working. The girl may be dead already.
It soon comes out that Alice didn’t call emergency services like she said she did. She may not have been entirely sober when the accident occurred. There will be more twists and reveals and details about these people and the events but thou shan’t spoil. Suffice to say, Maddie and Frank’s marriage is tested as they disagree about how to handle the situation. She wants to call the police and let the chips fall where they may. He wants to cover up the truth and take the blame for the accident so it doesn’t ruin Alice’s life – she’s 18 and just getting started. What’s right? What’s wrong? Both scenarios are deeply… parental. Oh and by the way is there something supernatural happening here? Don’t answer that.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Tom Hardy managed myriad personal and professional issues via speakerphone while driving for the entirety of Locke, which is increasingly a reference point for minimalist thrillers like Hallow Road.
Performance Worth Watching: Pike does most of the heavy lifting here, and delivers more memorably in the inevitable quasi-dueling monologues between her and Rhys.
Sex And Skin: None.
Our Take: Hallow Road is kind of mostly about what happens when parenting styles clash: Maddie chooses tough love, Frank a protective posture. I know which one sounds more right to me, but the film ultimately leans away from the potential character study at play for something darker and arguably more superficial (and again, eye the final credits closely to reveal the plot device). The conclusion Anvari and Gillies reach is somewhat more traditionally “satisfying” since it offers something resembling an explanation for the story’s central mystery, but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense within the film’s weird melange of harrowingly realistic what-would-you-do-in-this-situation metaphor-cloaked drama and apparent supernatural goings-on (the forest by Hallow Road is an eerie place dripping with lore, and you’ll note that the movie takes place on Oct. 31).
But what makes the film functional is Anvari’s ability to hold us in the moment, feeling the immediacy and tension of Maddie and Frank’s grueling ride to the scene of the accident – imagine hearing something scary or inexplicable over the phone and not being able to do anything except blurt out advice to your daughter and hope, despite some very fresh wounds from interpersonal friction, she trusts and listens to you. It’s a classic parents’-worst-nightmare scenario, and Hallow Road capitalizes on those feelings of helplessness or doubt or tenuous hope that you’ve prepared this young woman for the inevitable traumas of adulthood.
As Hallow Road works through some standard raw-nerve conversations between Maddie and Frank – you won’t be surprised when personal baggage turns up and difficult truths are confessed – Anvari makes the most of some potent sound effects (gotta love it when the subtitles simply read “(squelching)”) and uses POV to enhance dread and drama. When the visual methodology shifts from consistent two-shots of Maddie and Frank in the car and spins to look out the windshield, it feels monumental. What we see beyond the pane may not be entirely coherent or gratifying, but there’s little argument that the ride to get there is impressively intense.
Our Call: Although it’s far from perfect, Hallow Road does a lot with very little, and feels refreshing in its avoidance of maximalist filmmaking. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.
