Review of Absentia (2011) by Robert B — 26 Apr 2012

Absentia (Mike Flanagan, 2011).

Absentia first hit my radar after the Fantasia Film Festival, held every July in Canada. I saw a number of bloggers give it the Canadian equivalent of a Best in Show award, and determined I'd check it out when it came to DVD. (I knew better than to think it would ever appear on the big screen in Cleveland, though I was intrigued enough to ask if it could be added to the Capitol Theatre's all-night horror-thon in October. Which obviously didn't happen.) That determination was sharpened when the end of the year rolled around...and a lot of those same critics-plus more-started putting Absentia on the tops of their best-of-the-year lists. (In fact, the only movie I saw top more of those was Drive.) By the time I got my hands on a copy thanks to the good folks at Netflix, I had already seen one film that would be in contention for best-of-2011, Bellflower, and Drive was sitting on the mantel waiting for me to get to it.

It no longer matters. Absentia is a movie so good that there are few years in which it wouldn't be the best film of the year. My first impression was that with a clearer head and a few day's distance, I might be able to find some things about the movie that would make me knock it down to four and a half stars; I can't remember the last time I gave out two five-star movie reviews in the space of a month (cf. Jeux Interdits review 13Mar12). [Which is one reason it's great to keep a spreadsheet. The last time it happened was five years ago; Sunset Blvd. got one on 12Apr07 and Ikiru got one on 11May07. For the record, Ikiru would be the last film to which I have a five-star review for two years.] But I've given the movie those few days, I've read other reviews of the film and examined the criticisms, I've examined the things I thought I might eventually become less than thrilled with, and I should mention "other people's criticisms of the film" and "things I thought might have been weak" are mutually exclusive categories (more on that later), and I realized that it didn't matter how much I was going to pick at this film, it is sheer, unadulterated gold.

Plot: Tricia (Step Up 2: The Streets' Courtney Bell)'s husband Daniel (Nailed's Morgan Peter Brown) disappeared seven years ago, and she is headed towards filing to have him declared dead in absentia. Her sister Callie (Cut's Katie Parker), a former narcotics addict now in recovery (and on the religion kick), is in town to offer moral support, and Detective Mallory (Asylum's Dave Levine), who took over the investigation after the original detective retired, is also hovering close. And here's the first question this film will make you ask: if the husband has been missing for seven years, how is Tricia pregnant? (An answer is suggested. Pay attention. I have seen way too many people ask this question.).

None of which sounds like a horror film. Which is both one of the movie's strongest points and one of the things that has caused such great ire from disappointed people on comment threads at places like IMDB: for most of its length, Absentia is not a horror film at all, especially not in the sense we in the 2010s think of a horror film. To understand where Flanagan is coming from, you have to go back farther than that, to a period where people remembered what horror films are actually for-the examination of feelings of fear and heartbreak that accompany loss. And the first half of this film is absolutely, and completely, about Tricia's feelings towards Daniel's disappearance and her guilt at having him declared dead. It's a drama, not a horror film, and when the supernatural stuff does start appearing (and it does in the second half of the film), it is there mostly to augment the drama rather than provide a horror element. (I feel an urge to compare this to YellowBrickRoad in this regard, though Absentia is a far superior film.).

I've seen two main criticisms of the film that actually hold water (there is a small batch of people who are criticizing the film's near-perfect script, which makes absolutely no sense to me, so I'm not going to even consider that one), though I found neither bothersome at all. The first is that this isn't actually a horror film. I think I've already covered that one, and when it comes right down to it, it's not the movie's fault if it was mismarketed (or if you think it was mismarketed). The second has to do with the movie's soundtrack, and I've seen this criticism from professional critics as well as the hoi polloi posting on the message boards. I did notice some repetition, but really, folks, if you thought that was bad, go watch The Turin Horse, one of the best movies made in 2010 despite having a soundtrack that contains just two pieces (one of which is far more grating than the main theme here could ever dream of being). When I was looking at things I might want to ding the film for, I focused more on the acting, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought Bell and Parker were going for that kind of cinema verité feel a la Cassavettes, and was willing to let it slide. Other than that, there's nothing at all I can fault this movie for. Pitch-perfect pacing, one of the better scripts I've come across in a horror movie in years, very good cinematography, well-drawn characters with realistic emotional reactions... I really have nothing at all bad to say about this movie. But do yourself a favor and go into it with no expectations. This is not a horror film like any that has been released in the past thirty-odd years, and if you're looking for that sort of experience, look elsewhere. For the rest of us, Absentia is one of the best movies of the past decade. *****.