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Remember Quibi? The short-lived streaming service was a punchline that vastly overestimated how many people felt the need to watch bite-sized shows and movies on their phones, but shortly before it was incorporated into the Roku Channel. It looks like they’ve done one thing: allow creators to keep their content alive. Ownership of the work is granted after a two-year exclusivity period. Not content to see the 13-part thriller series The Stranger disappear on whatever platform it debuted on, The Killing creator Veena Sadd is re-editing the project into a feature film with editor Philip Fowler. did. The eight-minute episodes, named after their broadcast times (starting at 7 p.m. and ending at 7 a.m.), have been discontinued and replaced with 98-minute Hulu features, but there is no sign of an overhaul. I can’t do it.
Six days after moving to Los Angeles with her dog Pebbles, rideshare driver Claire (Maika Monroe) picks up Carl E. (Dane DeHaan) at a mansion that doesn’t belong to her. It’s weird (not overtly sinister) from her reaction to how long it takes to get to LAX, from the moment he realizes she’s not a local and asks him to sit in her front seat instead of her back seat. (No, but not). (In fact, she, like Dorothy in Ruby Slippers, is from Wamego, Kansas; similarities to “The Wizard of Oz” are repeated throughout.)
After charming her for several minutes, he tells her that he has murdered the residents of the pickup spot and appears ready to do the same to her until she intentionally crashes his car and flees. I’ll let you know. As fate would have it, this is just the beginning of a long night of cat-and-mouse in which he is mostly absent. A master hacker with an encyclopedic knowledge of the algorithms humming in the background of our daily lives, his presence is more virtual than physical.
Think of Monroe, who can’t help but find herself in exactly this situation. After her breakthrough performance in “It Follows,” she delivered equally captivating turns in “The Guest” and “The Watcher,” establishing her as the preeminent scream queen of her generation. established its position. She will next be seen in the neon Longlegs with Nicolas Cage and will reprise her most famous role in the cleverly titled They Follow. Monroe is well-suited to this kind of role without feeling restricted, and is good at playing the damsel who reverses her distress to save herself. The close-up of her tearful figure embodies her sympathetic weakness, unable to fully conceal the tenacity that wells up within her.
Claire, who was fired from the police force and suspended from her ride-hailing company, told her mother over the phone that she was “not making this up.” “This is different from last time.” This naturally leads us to wonder if she is actually making it up. Because her pursuer – whose name happens to be an anagram of her – relentlessly pursues her with the single-minded intensity of a supernatural being. “It goes on.” So does the camera, with Paul Yee’s fluid cinematography giving her life-or-death trial the immediacy it deserves. “The Stranger” takes over 12 hours, but it has a real-time feel to it.
What this production lacks is an original story, and few scenes can match the level of terror evoked by the opening inside the car. It’s the fight-or-flight panic that comes from slowly realizing something is wrong and finding yourself in a scary situation. Trapped in a space with a confessed murderer who seems to know everything about you. There’s no shortage of potential in its premise, and the film doesn’t waste it, but it doesn’t make the most of it, either, with behind-the-scenes stories (about the project’s post-Quibi fate). ) ultimately become more important. It’s more characteristic than the actual plot. Monroe is good at driving, as always. If this was a rideshare app for him, he would definitely get 5 stars. But she’s behind the wheel of a car that looks all too familiar.
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