THRILLER; 1hr 35min
STARRING: Amanda Seyfried, Emily Wickersham
Going, going… Seyfried
Being kidnapped by a serial lunatic and hurled into a hole in deep woods would be unthinkable. Portland, Oregon, waitress Jill Conway (Seyfried) survived it — or claims she did, there being no forensic evidence to support her story. One year later, Jill is still obsessing. And when her sister and housemate Molly (Wickersham) disappears one night, Jill is convinced her diabolical kidnapper is back. Given her official mental instability, the police aren’t buying it, so Jill goes after the nameless man solo.
As imaged by Brazilian director Heitor Dhalia, Portland is a drizzly and sombre city. He plays on its cheerless pall over the one relentless day that Jill searches for her sister, evading the law as nimbly as she improvises on-the-spot whoppers to unsuspecting witnesses she encounters. Is this girl completely loco? Did her abduction really happen? And is recovering alcoholic Molly actually on another bender? While Dhalia keeps the cat-mouse mechanics up to speed, Seyfried never overdoes her purposeful-to-paranoid business. It’s not the stuff of nightmares, but ambiguity is creepier than you might think.
