10 Cloverfield Lane

J.J. Abrams’ production company Bad Robot, which produced 2009’s “Cloverfield,” and “Super 8,” has made Abrams’ concept of the ‘mystery box’ a big part of the way it they tell their stories and an even bigger part of the way market their projects. “10 Cloverfield Lane” is a conceptual successor to the 2009 found-footage, monster-movie but it’s not necessarily a sequel. Of course Bad Robot sold the, as with many of its others, with a shroud of mystery, releasing a vague but enticing trailer. Luckily the film itself lives up to most of the intrigue of the trailer and though it only takes about 30 minutes before you realize this has nothing to do with the original “Cloverfield,” it settles in successfully as a contained thriller on its own... that is until it loses its nerve in a jarring and disjointed final sequence.

In keeping with the ‘mystery box’ narrative style we are introduced to our movie’s lead Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) as she is racing down the highways of rural America after initiating a bad breakup. On her way, she collides with a truck and is left for dead on the side of the road, where she is eventually rescued by an intense survivalist/conspiracy theorist named Howard (John Goodman). Michelle wakes up to finds herself in a hand-built bomb shelter where her captor/savior Howard insists that Armageddon has begun outside of the walls of their sanctuary and that she must live with him and his younger apprentice Emmet (John Gallagher Jr) until the air outside has become clear of nuclear fallout.

This would be a great premise for a bottle episode of anthology television shows like “The Twilight Zone,” “The Outer Limits” or even “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” The contained locations and the intimate cast focus the energy of the film on steady, deliberate scene direction and performances. All three of the leads are convincing in their parts – Winstead proves again that she can hold the camera’s attention and can bring both emotional heft and levity when it’s needed. Gallagher Jr works as a great foil that helps to settle the story’s tension with a general sense of everyman relatability. Goodman is given the license to ham it up and he chooses to use it, integrating many acting ticks into his creepy portrayal of a deeply paranoid and lonely control freak. Much of this is presented like a perversion of the American family archetype and in the background there’s only a hint of something more dangerous and otherworldly at stake. Unfortunately, the movie’s awkward landing doesn’t maintain the same kind of subtly and suggestion.

 First time director Dan Trachtenberg is able to keep the pot simmering for the most part but reported on-set rewrites lead to the movie’s downfall in a tonally jarring conclusion. I can’t give away what happens, but let’s just say that the human interactions happening inside of the seller is a hell of a lot more interesting than what’s apparently happening outside of it. Because the “Cloverfield” brand was slapped on this otherwise good thriller, Abrams’ made more effort to connect the two movies in ways that undercut this film’s deeper themes of fanaticism and the results of dangerously regressive gender dynamics. Like a pulpy cousin to last year’s Oscar-nominated “Room,” “10 Cloverfield Lane” wants to explore bigger ideas outside of the confines of its genre, but those ideas are ultimately trapped within a problematic rewrite.  

Even though the movie is hobbled by its misjudged ending, the merits of everything leading up to it can’t be ignored. As such, the film will sit alongside Steven Spielberg’s “A.I” and Danny Boyles “Sunshine” in the pantheon of sci-fi near-masterpieces that are marred by their last half hour.


Grade: B -

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/March-2016 

Listen to more discussion about "10 Cloverfield Lane" on this week's Jabber and the Drone Podcast.