Movie Review: THE APOLOGY

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN

Posted: December 16th, 2022 / 02:25 PM

THE_APOLOGY movie poster | ©2022 RLJE Films

Rating: Not rated
Stars: Anna Gunn, Linus Roache, Janeane Garofalo
Writer: Alison Star Locke
Director: Alison Star Locke
Distributor: RLJE Films
Release Date: December 16, 2022 (theatrical, Shudder, AMC+)

THE APOLOGY has two main characters, plus a supporting third, set mostly inside a single home. It is admirable economical filmmaking by writer/director Alison Star Locke, who makes sure that the subject matter and the performances keep us engaged.

Establishing shots show us some houses, none too near to one another, in a sparsely wooded area next to an enormous snowed-over lake.

Anna Gunn plays Darlene Hagen, who lives in one of these houses. Her sixteen-year-old daughter Sally disappeared twenty years ago. Darlene’s husband Ed is gone from the picture, but Darlene has never given up searching and never stopped hoping that this is what she describes as an “Elizabeth Smart” situation, where Sally may have been abducted but is still alive.

Darlene’s good friend and neighbor Gretchen (Janeane Garofalo) is helping her get the house ready for the holidays, the first Christmas celebration Darlene will be hosting since Sally vanished. Darlene’s sister Julie, with her grownish kids in tow, is scheduled to come over the next day.

Darlene, once an alcoholic, has been sober since losing her daughter. Now, though, she is tempted to drink. But before she can take a sip, there’s a knock on the door.

This is Jack (Linus Roache), formerly Julie’s husband. Jack and Darlene are clearly very fond of each other, with some sort of more than in-laws history between them. Jack, who left his marriage and the region nineteen years ago, says he planned a Christmas surprise visit to see his children, but his car broke down, he can’t get cell service, and he thought maybe he could come in out of the cold at Darlene’s.

But Jack has something he wants to talk about with Darlene. Given the setup and the title, we can guess what this is going to be. The suspense comes from how each of them will deal with it, and how every reaction branches into more possibilities.

Darlene overall has responses that we empathize with and understand. Jack is trickier. He is realistically erratic, especially given what we learn about him, but this starts to trip up how we’re following THE APOLOGY. Sometimes it seems like Jack has a plan, sometimes it seems like he genuinely doesn’t know what he should or wants to do. On the one hand, this is plausible, but it causes the film to veer back and forth between character study and thriller, when being both at once seems to be the intention.

Gunn and Roache both run through the gamut of emotions in compelling style, and Garofalo makes a solid contribution. The unspoken star of THE APOLOGY may be its exteriors, where the haphazard layout of houses makes us want to know more about its community.

THE APOLOGY is a bit uneven, but it has enough going for it to be worth watching.

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