Review of Stuck! (2009) by Christopher R — 16 Apr 2009

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" Stuck is an exceptional, genre-bending, powerful and absorbing film from cult favorite Stuart Gordon. I won't bother with a synopsis as the one here on Flixster is well written and to the point.

Suffice it to say that has become a new favourite of mine. The simple structure of the film, shifting point of view from Brandi to Tom, to Brandi & Tom, very effectively ratchets up the tension and grotesqueness, and every sequence has something going for it.

At only 85 minutes running time, the pace doesn't drag, and despite the deliberate hysteria of the situation, Stuck never gets tiresome and more surprisingly, doesn't approach a "now, hang on a minute" moment.

I personally think a huge amount of credit should go to Meena Suvari and Stephen Rea, two terrific, underrated actors. As Brandi, Suvari continues to make horrible decisions, but key is despite the inherent unlikeability of what she continues to do, it's impossible not to lose hope that she'll turn her situation around and do the right thing.

Hers is a fearless performance. There's something about her physicality here, and oddly, her braided hairstyle angles her face in such a way that her emotions and thought processes are easy to read; thus even towards the end there's still, somehow, the ability to 'root' for her.

There's a brilliant, disturbing and horribly funny moment early on, where Tom is still stuck in the windshield of Brandi's car in the garage, whilst in the house she is fucking her drug-dealer boyfriend.

She has a flashback to the impact of the crash, whilst having sex, and Tom's face appears and she screams in horror - her boyfriend mistakes it for a powerful orgasm and proceeds to speed up his thrusts.

In this moment, Suvari's whole body language changes, and for an instance, post-coital and wracked with anxiety, she looks like a child in the womb, almost alien-like. Stephen Rhea is equally good as Tom; he has little to say except "please, help me" and variations there on, but the things he has to go through! Whenever Tom manages to move another foot out of the windshield, or blast the horn, or (shudder) remove a foreign object from his body, the amount of effort it visibly takes on him feels like massive progress.

I can't say more about Rhea without giving away too much, but his is continually excellent. Aside from the acting, the story is frequently clever, the writing is fresh and witty (sometimes stupid-funny, other times dark-funny), the direction assured.

Props too to the sound effects. A very memorable film.