Hallow Road: Film Review
I love a contained one-location story so Hallow Road – which is primarily set in the front seats of a car – sounded right up my street.
*MINOR SPOILERS*
The film stars Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys as Maddie and Frank Finch, who are woken up in the early hours of the morning by their daughter Alice (voiced by Megan McDonnell) calling in distress. She has accidentally hit a pedestrian with her car. Maddie and Frank jump into their car and drive to Alice, keeping her on the phone as much as possible.
It’s hard to maintain excitement and interest with a single location story but Hallow Road manages to do so for the entire 80 minutes. For the first hour, the screenplay is really clever and holds our attention by introducing new topics of discussion. After the initial panic and paramedic Maddie walking Alice through CPR, the lulls in drama are filled with conversations about what will happen to Alice, how they should handle her situation, why Maddie seems so checked out of her life and details about the argument the trio had hours earlier. I was intrigued by all of it and became particularly gripped by the arrival of a witness on the scene.
Unfortunately, Hallow Road gets weaker as it progresses and loses its way when it verges on the supernatural and fantastical. It’s such a shame it went down this route because I liked it until the tonal shift. My regular readers will know that I’m not a fan of ambiguous endings and this one is so unresolved that it left me cold and ruined what had come before. The ending is underwhelming and confusing and it felt a bit lazy. I have so many questions!
The performances are excellent across the board but I was particularly impressed by Pike. She really runs the gamut of emotions. Maddie starts in controlled paramedic mode and slowly becomes more angry, emotional and desperate. Being stuck in a car unable to help her daughter during a time of crisis understandably takes its toll. I was captivated by one of her monologues. McDonnell also does an extraordinary job of conveying her character’s fear, panic and distress with just her voice. I was thoroughly convinced.
Hallow Road is a tense and unsettling film with brilliant performances and voice actors. What a shame about that cop-out ending!
In cinemas from Friday 16th May