The Abandon, 2024.
Directed by Jason Satterlund.
Starring Jonathan Rosenthal, Tamara Perry, Regis Terencio, Dan Kyle, and Priscilla Avila.
SYNOPSIS:
A wounded soldier awakens in a strange cube that tests his physical and mental limits as he attempts to find a way to escape against a ticking clock.
Allow me to make clear right away that the poster for director Jason Satterlund’s The Abandon might be initially misleading (especially if you’re like me and watch movies without really knowing anything about them): The Abandon is not a sci-fi film about an American soldier who winds up using a special cube in battle. In actuality, it’s a single-setting thriller following an injured American soldier sucked away or abducted into a cube-shaped room, trapped with nothing but his gear. This room also happens to be a unique torture device in that it can change the temperature to scorching hot or harsh cold, start spinning around while flinging its occupant from wall to wall, and even shrink itself, with the idea being that this is a race against the clock to figure out how to escape.
Jonathan Rosenthal also looks the part, playing the confused and mystified soldier Miles Willis. He delivers a competently paranoid turn that eventually transitions into a reckoning with his past and life mistakes. Using his military radio, he discovers a stateside woman contacting him (primarily a voiceover performance from Tamara Perry) who unexpectedly shares much in common despite having no soldier background. There are also many minor revelations showing that they also lead completely different lives, some of which are for reasons I’m intentionally being vague about.
Even though this is a frustratingly sluggish 97 minutes that feels more like 137 minutes by the time it’s over (being confined to that cubic space the entire time doesn’t exactly help, mainly since the room gets repetitive in repeating its gimmicks, and there isn’t much throttle or urgency to what’s happening), those performances are committed and engaging inside of a narrative that is, if nothing else, a mildly compelling mystery. Specifically, I don’t mean it’s compelling to watch unfold; again, seeing that same space over and over means you could, theoretically, get all there is to get out of this film while multitasking as it plays out. Discovering the small twists and turns is intriguing, especially as the situation morphs into, of all things, a complicated math equation.
One wonders if the proceedings would have been more visually stimulating if the film had also focused on the other victim’s perspective or made slightly more of an effort to dig into the flashbacks it does bring up rather than having these two characters primarily just monologuing about them or becoming angry at each other when it’s convenient for the plot. Bluntly put, too much of this begins to feel repetitive, like a magician floundering to keep the audience entertained after burning through its entire bag of tricks.
Yet, for whatever reason, The Abandon also keeps one involved, perhaps because the script by Dwain Worrell knows that because of the confined, limiting space, there need to be gradual clues and bits and pieces given away to viewers. The film as a whole isn’t well-paced, but that aspect works well enough in conjunction with actors trying to elevate what little is on the page. Unfortunately, it also doesn’t stick with commenting on anything in particular that it brings up (at one point, we think this is going to morph into a lecture to Miles on the cycle of a particular war), more concerned with examining shared backstory details and encouraging humanity to work together and look out for one another. The room keeps shrinking, we keep getting dots connected, and by the end, there still aren’t a lot of significant answers, but everything from how the cube operates to escaping is weird enough to keep one entertained.
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
