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A young woman grieving the death of her child treks to the cliffside spot where he died. She intends to jump herself. Played by Kelsey Asbille, the woman is approached by a mysterious stranger, played by Finn Wittrock. He recognises immediately that she’s one step away from falling to her death. The stranger doesn’t attempt to talk her down from the ledge, but he makes enough of an impression for her to reconsider. They walk back together to the parking lot, where things take a sudden turn. The man injects her with some kind of paralytic substance, revealing that he isn’t a good samaritan after all. Thus begins Don’t Move, a high-concept thriller that producer Sam Raimi probably thought was going to turn out like his knockout 2016 film Don’t Breathe. It didn’t.
These movies have nothing in common beyond Raimi’s involvement, and that gentle nudge of a title. In terms of quality, they couldn’t be further apart from each other. Don’t Move appears to be so pleased with its premise — it’s a survival thriller featuring an immobile protagonist! — that it forgets it needs to sustain this early momentum. The movie succeeds in drawing your sympathies for its heroine, Iris, but struggles to put her in interesting scenarios after this pre-credits sequence.
She is told by her captor that she has about 20 minutes before her entire body will shut down. The stranger intends to take her to his secluded cabin in the woods, and implies that he’s done this to several women in the past. You’d imagine that a person caught in Iris’ situation would use her wiliness to attempt an escape. But Don’t Move projects her as either hyper-skilled or completely inept. Nothing in between. Somewhat surprisingly, the movie allows her to escape in the first act itself, while she still has some control over her movements. But she does this simply by pulling out a Swiss knife from her pocket and slicing her way out of her plastic handcuffs. As if he’s read your mind, the kidnapper kicks himself for not checking her pockets.
But Don’t Move often finds itself resorting to contrivances such as this, as it tumbles along from one set piece to another. In the very next scene, a now-inert Iris rolls into a downward stream in a fresh attempt to give the stranger a slip. She cannot move at all by this point; the drug has taken full effect. How will she survive, you wonder. As it turns out, a log will magically appear in her path, and she will suddenly find the ability to move her arms just enough to latch on. It’s basically a Deus Ex Machina moment. So what if Jesus himself didn’t appear to save her? The blessed log was probably around back when he was a carpenter.
Speaking of Deux Ex Machina, Iris somehow finds herself in a field of some kind not too long afterwards — her movement appears and disappears purely on the basis of what the plot requires. An old man spots her, and wheels her into his house. For a moment, it seems as if she has been saved. But just as he’s about to summon the police, the stranger comes knocking on his door. This scene repeats itself with another character around 20 minutes later — once again, it seems as if Iris is going to be rescued, only for the stranger to kill the would-be hero most violently.
But for someone who is able to commit murder this easily — the stranger seems to be quick on his feet in high-pressure situations, and resourceful enough to use everyday objects as weapons — he is utterly incapable of either capturing or killing Iris. And she doesn’t even have to outsmart him! Hilariously, she’s sitting right next to him in a car during the film’s final act, and somehow, she’s still breathing. Don’t Move has a wobbly relationship with its internal logic, which is quite apparent when you consider just how lackadaisical it is about the kidnapper’s intelligence and Iris’ skillset. They become what the script needs them to become.
It makes for a frustrating experience, and your patience is likely to be worn thin even before the film’s Ripley-esque final showdown, in which, you guessed it, Iris has regained full control of her movements. It feels like a cop-out, honestly; as if the movie was written by an AI that kept resorting to cheat codes. It sort of negates the entire premise, which is odd, because that’s the one thing that Don’t Move had going for it. Sure, it’s also about a suicidal woman regaining her will to live — so what if she needed a serial killer to give her a kick up the backside and not a spiritual guru? — but by the time the movie circles back to its emotional core, you’d probably have forgotten all about it.
Don’t Move
Directors – Adam Schindler, Brian Netto
Cast – Kelsey Asbille, Finn Wittrock
Rating – 2/5
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