 | MOVIE DETAILS • Name: Hold the Dark • Year: 2018 • Country: USA • Director: Jeremy Saulnier • Main cast: Jeffrey Wright, Alexander Skarsgård, James Badge Dale • Runtime: 125 minutes • Production company: Addictive Pictures, Film Science, VisionChaos Productions • TRAILER
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For most of the time, while watching Hold the Dark (2018), I was reminded to one of the thrillers that I’ve enjoyed the most in the last years, Wind River (2017) [read our review here]. Because of the arid landscapes on the winter of the wild mountains of Canada, the peace and danger those landscapes provide, the white people dealing with the indigenous remaining inhabitants of the zone, which always have words of wisdom and dark superstitions to throw… It must come with the scenario that evokes stories with such calm and cruelness at equal parts.
It could be a fast way to put you, the readers, into the situation. Hold the Dark (2018) could be seen as a minor sibling of Wind River (2017). The ingredients are the same, a story that starts as a regular thriller but holding some unexpected surprises, the characters dealing with the dangers of the wild snowed forests and the creatures that inhabit them, and a crime with a more complicated resolution as first was expected. Perhaps this time the characters are not as well built as in the other mentioned movie, I always had the feeling I was glued to the screen mostly because of the beauty of the images and the potential of the story, but that doesn’t hurt much the final product.
Hold the Dark (2018), is based on a book of the same name written by William Giraldi. Jeremy Saulnier, better known for his previous movie Green Room (2015) was in charge of the direction. I can see some similarities with his preceding work. Perhaps instead of being trapped in a punk rock club the protagonists of this new film are trapped in the wide winter wild, and in their own world of fears, regrets and mental problems. Alexander Skarsgård plays a cold as ice character, as he has accustomed us. He is as Alexander Skarsgård as can be. Jeffrey Wright brings a less intense and more calmed and pensive performance that normally, but what loses in intensiveness he wins in wisdom. But no one is colder and more mysterious than the character played by Riley Keough. Since the very first time she appears on screen one can see that character is trouble. Mark down the name of Riley Keough, because this could be her big year, with her being part of the awaited titles Under the Silver Lake (2018) and The House That Jack Built (2018).
I have read mainly negative reviews about Hold the Dark (2018). Of course, everyone has the right to have our own opinions, but, for me, it was a more than a decent thriller. Perhaps the filmmakers tried to focus more on the artistic and petulant beauty of the images more than the story and the action, but it is still an enjoyable movie. I think this is one of the best quality additions to the Netflix Originals catalog in the last months, and I totally hope they keep this path.
RATE: 6,5/10
IMDB URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5057140
