The Escape, 2017.
Directed by Dominic Savage.
Starring Gemma Arterton, Dominic Cooper, Frances Barber, Marthe Keller, and Jalil Lespert.
SYNOPSIS:
An ordinary woman makes an extraordinary decision which will change her life forever.
Dominic Savage’s The Escape is a deceptively taut thriller. Not in the traditional sense, there are no grandiose set pieces, nor blistering showdowns. Yet he forms tension in what’s been left unsaid, the decaying love between a couple and their children at such a pace, it often leaves you chewing through your fingernails as if a buffet.
It’s a lofty feat. Much like Mike Leigh, he leans heavily into improvisation, giving stars Dominic Cooper and Gemma Arterton room to form – what seems on screen, to be a marriage worn in.
On the surface, they look as if the ideal nuclear family. Mark (Cooper) is the breadwinner, Tara (Arterton) cares for their young son and daughter and they live well. But Savage gives the façade little room to move, opening the film on a sex scene grimly uncomfortable; Tara is so out of love with Mark, that she grimaces in pain at every thrust.
This is one of the films key motifs. Everything Mark does makes Tara fall ever more out of love with him. His relationship with the kids is bright, they adore him; he is fun, she is not.
Their arguments are bleak and despairingly sad. Mark is never truly nasty, but he reveals himself to be selfish and totally unaware of Tara’s lack of drive. It’s only upon Tara breaking down that Mark begins to put the pieces together and he himself finds himself lost.
Savage allows this to build. The titular “escape” happens late on, allowing the film room to ruminate in her disdain. “They [the children] hate me,” she declares to a dumfounded Mark before revealing how little she often cares about them. It’s an acerbic, deeply sad moment but it’s been long coming.
A fitful journey to the train station to do little more than train spot results in the children being picked up late. Dropping them off at school becomes a chore; the very nature of making breakfast becomes backbreaking.
Arterton puts in a career best performance. She so convincingly encapsulates despair and momentarily enlightenment. A venture to Paris is a stunning coda to a film so bleak in its portrayal of marriage. Cooper too impresses. He so often finds himself grappling with poor material, so to see him perform with real heft with meaty material is welcome.
Savage also smartly shoots the film in a manner reflecting the Dardennes. The bright lights of Paris are all the brighter when paired with rainy shots of an Asda car park.
It may be that the titular escape is maybe initially too full of sunshine (as with everything the film achieves, it reveals itself to be far more melancholy) but The Escape is a truly impressive study of a marital breakdown. Like A Woman On The Verge of a Nervous Breakdown if shot in Slough.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Thomas Harris
