Brave the Dark, 2025.
Directed by Damian Harris.
Starring Jared Harris, Nicholas Hamilton, Jamie Harris, Sasha Bhasin, Will Price, Daisy Galvis and Joey Cabrera.
SYNOPSIS:
Haunted by torturous childhood memories, Nate Williams finds himself engulfed in darkness. When his drama teacher, Mr. Deen bails him out of jail and takes him in, Nate must confront his past before it leads to his own destruction.
Based on true events, director Damian Harris’ Brave the Dark follows homeless high school senior Nathan Williams (a leather jacket-sporting bad boy played by Nicholas Hamilton), troubled but kind and caught up in a rebellious crowd, also becoming the only one of that group to be punished for stealing from a home appliances store. Following a rather humiliating arrest at school (an effort to make an example out of his misdeeds), his girlfriend Tina (Sasha Bhasin) decides to step away from the relationship while most of the school faculty deem him a lost cause, relieved that they no longer have to deal with a student they attribute as disrespectful and lazy.
One particularly empathetic teacher isn’t ready to give up, as drama instructor Stan Deen (Jared Harris) steps in to not only try and get Nathan back on a more productive life path but to save him from serving time. Naturally, posting his bail turns out to be difficult, and the situation turns out to be much more dire than he ever imagined once he discovers that Nathan has been living in his car instead of a foster home. Nathan is also momentarily reunited with his strict, hard-edged grandparents, who are more concerned with making him work while also perceiving him as more of a burden than anything. The grandfather especially has a startling lack of empathy regarding some trauma that happened to Nathan’s mother, who died when he was six, cruelly stating that she made mistakes in life and got what was coming to her.
These grandparents clearly aren’t the proper guardians to assist Nathan with his current predicament and personal demons, so the well-meaning Stan goes through the trouble of getting authorization for the boy to live with him while helping turn his life around. It also made clear that Stan is already lonely, having lost his mom roughly a year ago, now living alone. This is not about one man’s loneliness, though, as he is a teacher who genuinely perceives his job as going beyond the classroom, subscribing to the notion that no child is hopeless.
As such, Brave the Dark works when it’s allowing Nicholas Hamilton and Jared Harris to talk, as each character slowly lets their guard down. Understandably, Nathan becomes confused about why Stan is going to such extremes to help change his life for the better, giving the expected problem of child resistance. The two often butt heads with Nicholas Hamilton convincingly portraying these conflicted emotions. Meanwhile, Jared Harris is terrific as a kindhearted soul, occasionally with an amusing dry sense of humor. Whenever they are interacting with one another, the film feels grounded and human.
However, and this could be a result of not only multiple screenwriters in Lynn Robertson Hay, Dale G. Bradley, and Damian Harris but also the fact that this is a script rewritten from the works of the actual Nathan and John P. Spencer, Brave the Dark also has several unnecessary melodramatic flourishes. It starts with flashbacks hinting that there is more to the death of Nathan’s mom than a supposed car accident (offering glimpses of an abusive partner.) Then it continues with Nathan gradually taking on the persona of that father when Tina regularly reaffirms that she doesn’t want to talk to him anymore. It’s a situation that only escalates when she quickly starts dating a boy Nathan already doesn’t like without any justifiable reason for doing so.
There are solid thematic ideas and juxtapositions here, but the execution is noticeably weaker and forced compared to the drama that generally feels real and moving from letting Nicholas Hamilton and Jared Harris act. One wonders if the mystery element regarding what really happened to Nathan’s mom fits in this narrative simply because it consistently hurts the storytelling structure. A more restrained approach to that plot element might have been wiser (there are certainly some flashbacks that don’t need to be here) and further elevated some of the revelatory moments and closing speeches.
However, as a film about compassionate teachers going above and beyond whilst showing the impact they can have on a student’s life for the better, alongside an otherwise inspirational and compelling story for Nathan, it’s easy to brave the dark in Brave the Dark. It has flaws but is well-meaning, sincere, and potentially even crucial, considering teachers today are grossly undervalued.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd
Originally published January 24, 2025. Updated January 25, 2025.
