{"id":6103,"date":"2018-09-30T08:40:04","date_gmt":"2018-09-30T15:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=6103"},"modified":"2018-09-30T08:40:04","modified_gmt":"2018-09-30T15:40:04","slug":"review-hold-the-dark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=6103","title":{"rendered":"Review: HOLD THE DARK"},"content":{"rendered":"

Director Jeremy Saulnier continues to explore the primal side of human nature in his provocative new film \u201cHold the Dark.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"\"\"After receiving a handwritten letter from grieving mother Medora (Riley Keough), wolf expert and wilderness writer Russell Core (Jeffrey Wright) decides to make the trip to visit her in a remote Alaskan town. But he\u2019s making this journey for himself. Russell is estranged from his own daughter and Medora\u2019s heartfelt words reach into the same emptiness that he also feels. Russell once killed a she-wolf, only to regret it later, but he reasons simply that he had no choice. It\u2019s a crime for which he must atone. This becomes a metaphor that permeates a dense, emotional narrative. Nagging questions hang about, was it a wolf that Russell killed?<\/p>\n

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Once arriving in Medora\u2019s rural community, Russell discovers what he thinks is a mother dealing with traumatic loss. But, to his detriment, he fails to heed the cryptic warnings of a local Native American woman named Illanaq (Tantoo Cardinal). What\u2019s happened to Medora, Russell believes, is rare but easy to recognize\u2014a wolf has taken her little boy. And relying on Medora as his guide, she explains that her son is the community\u2019s third child taken. She wants Russell to track it, kill it, and bring it to her. Medora reasons that when her husband, Vernon (Alexander Skarsg\u00e5rd), returns from his tour of duty in Iraq, she must have something to show him.<\/p>\n

But when Russell returns from hunting, he finds that Medora has gone and left in her wake evidence of a grisly crime. The local sheriff (James Badge Dale) gets involved, forcing Russell to stay in an attempt to unravel the mystery. And Vernon\u2019s premature return from the field of battle only complicates things, as he takes off in search of Medora, determined to carry out his own murderous brand of justice.<\/p>\n

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What starts out like some kind of hunting ode with supernatural elements turns into a much more introspective journey. Told from three main perspectives, two of which seem unearthly, the story requires quite a bit of heavy lifting to digest. Adapted by Macon Blair (\u201cBlue Ruin\u201d) from the novel by William Giraldi, \u201cHold the Dark\u201d is one of the least explicit films I\u2019ve seen this year. The tone and visual strength is on par with Panos Cosmatos\u2019 infinitely more direct \u201cMandy.\u201d But \u201cHold the Dark\u201d certainly isn\u2019t a straightforward revenge yarn. There are layers upon layers. And it\u2019s not too much to respectfully suggest that maybe even Saulnier and Blair fail to fully comprehend the specific themes they are exploring.<\/p>\n

Therefore, into today\u2019s unequivocal and audience-pandering landscape, the Saulnier\/Blair team give us ambiguity all, leaving the viewer to unpack nuanced meanings. To be fair, it is possible to look at the film as a simple quest for justice\u2014a vigilante story. The damaged Russell is our more human relatable key into the twisted mental anguish that has overtaken the couple, Medora and Vernon, at the center of the violence around them.<\/p>\n

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Without spoiling certain critical moments, Saulnier\u2019s fans can rejoice, he\u2019s stayed true to his commitment to use of practicals that convey the deep-rooted hardness of violence left unchecked. Expect no computer generated wolves or animated trickery in this one. And one extended scene involving a high-powered machine gun is especially piercing. This sequence plays well against the more tender, if I can say that, use of violence that ushers in the movie\u2019s unresolved resolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnresolved resolution?\u201d Yes, I\u2019m tiptoeing around how Saulnier and Blair choose to end this visceral, naturalistic narrative. For a moment, I briefly thought of something like \u201cCat People,\u201d but then I put that simplistic idea out of my mind. I\u2019ll try to not define this film by merely referencing another.<\/p>\n

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So, for me, if I have to boil it down, the movie is about finding a way back. Russell is searching for a reason to reunite with his daughter\u2014he requires a trigger. Vernon, who we learn has always been alien to the rural wilds of Alaska where he grew up, is violently searching for a kind of justice that made no sense to him even on the relatively binary battlefield. And Medora sees herself as the tortured and stricken muse, the catalyst to end the suffering, even through use of evil. The emotional scars run deep, and the living go on for a lifetime tending to malingering wounds. The somber suggestion may be that there is a way in death to avoid the darkness.<\/p>\n

\u201cHold the Dark\u201d is streaming now on Netflix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jonathan attempts to define Jeremy Saulnier’s intriguing new film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[854,855,856,857,858,790,268,792,337,859,860],"class_list":["post-6103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-alexander-skarsgard","tag-hold-the-dark","tag-james-badge-dale","tag-jeffrey-wright","tag-jeremy-saulnier","tag-mandy","tag-netflix","tag-panos-cosmatos","tag-riley-keough","tag-tantoo-cardinal","tag-william-giraldi","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}