Clock, 2023.
Written and Directed by Alexis Jacknow.
Starring Dianna Agron, Jay Ali, Saul Rubinek, Melora Hardin, Rosa Gilmore, Grace Porter, and Alexis Jacknow.
SYNOPSIS:
On the eve of her 39th birthday, a woman desperately attempts to fix her broken biological clock.
There are graphic, effectively disturbing images in Clock and moments so silly they elicit unintentional laughter, sometimes all within the same scene. This is also not so much a case of conflicting tones but more so a horror story grounded in real-life issues that don’t know how to restrain itself from going overboard with generic jump scares, hallucinations, and supernatural demons that, aesthetically, come across as rejected concept art from a The Conjuring movie.
No better scene sums this up than the finale, where our protagonist comes to some startling revelations regarding something horrific and returns to her senses but then finds herself picking up a dinner tray to whack the demon (to be fair, there is a symbolic significance to this figure that gets beat over viewers’ heads) in the face. Writer/director Alexis Jacknow has a solid idea, taking the increasing pressures of becoming a mother (from society and loved ones) due to a 39-year-old woman’s so-called biological clock running out, translating that to an unsettling character-focused piece, at least until it’s failure to resist becoming full-on clunky horror.
Played by Dianna Agron, Ella Patel’s career-oriented and happily partnered with Aiden (Jay Ali), with no desire to have children even if one of her friends is pregnant. Her significant other would like children someday (but only because she wants to have them, insisting that it’s not a dealbreaker for their relationship), and a father who would like to see their Jewish bloodline continue (some of the more traditional horror dates back to her Holocaust surviving ancestors). However, Ella feels no desire to have a child, slowly becoming concerned that there might be something wrong with her, only for a doctor to recommend her to a groundbreaking clinical trial dealing with fancy experiments designed to manipulate hormones and fertility, all in the name of developing baby fever. It’s also apparent that Ella might have a phobia of pregnancy.
Conversations between Ella and the specialist for these treatments, Dr. Elizabeth Simmons (Melora Hardin), are generally naturalistic and riveting, mainly for the manipulative quality within every word spoken to the former. The act of performing experiments on someone, giving them pills, and at one point, something much more invasive and painful to change their outlook on motherhood is already grotesque and upsetting. Also, part of this process involves a brainwashing video that plants scarring images into the minds of Ella and viewers; there is your horror. That’s where this movie rattles. Clock is inherently uncomfortable to watch; it doesn’t need ghost stories and forced visual grandfather clock symbolism thrown in.
Then there is the third act, which is an unmitigated mess with over-the-top twists and turns, even for a movie where the fertility doctors are transparently up to no good from the beginning. Dianna Agron is serviceable at tapping into the peer pressure from every direction, the guilt and shame over her lack of desire toward being a mother, and also reacting to the goofier jump scare elements, but Clock is unfocused. The whole package is about as adequate as a broken clock.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
