Glue Trap (2023) opens in medias res, focusing on a sparring couple – Dan (Isaac Jay) and KJ (Brittany Bradford). At first, it seems like they’re in a therapy session; actually, it’s worse. They’re at a dinner party, and the host couple seems very happy, which only underlines their own issues. But some good comes of all the awkwardness – in a film, by the by, which specialises in awkwardness. One of the hosts, Jenn (Caroline Hertz) suggests that Dan and KJ could get away from it all by taking a break at her family’s holiday cabin in the Virginia woods. Presumably not having The Evil Dead or indeed, The Cabin in the Woods as an immediate cultural reference, they agree to give it a try. Next weekend, then: it’s a date.
Vacation, or intervention? It’s hard to say at this early point, but first impressions of the cabin itself are good, even if all the space and natural light aren’t an instant fix. There’s a minor problem – the cabin has mice – and there are glue traps dotted around to try to deal with them, which puts a dent in the atmosphere. What’s the best way to dispatch a trapped animal, after all? Hey, you may also spot a certain kind of symbolism here, too, given the film’s title. The audience can ponder this as they watch two people struggling with the pressure of simply being together, with none of the usual, welcome distractions. But we’re soon ready for something else, a further complicating factor.
We get one. Someone turns up at the cabin: a girl called Eliza (Gloria Bangiola), Jenn’s sister, who had no idea that the family place was in use and has plans to stay there herself. Well, Dan and KJ can’t exactly throw her out, given that the cabin belongs to her family; she stays around, turning the cabin retreat into a distinctly uncomfortable situation, acting a good part as an exuberant stranger very much taking the reins.
Can it get worse than this? Weirder than this? Oh, yes.
There’s a switch is style and tone during Glue Trap which momentarily feels rather abrupt, particularly after the sustained and very sensitive focus on Dan and KJ up to this point, but in hindsight, the shift-around is a brave decision. Nothing detracts from the excellent performances here, in a film with a very small cast which never feels reductive or tried-and-tested. Dan comes off as an earnest, but overgrown kid; KJ, whilst more dynamic than Dan, is way more hung up on their accumulating issues. And then there’s Eliza, a woman so overexcited that it could clearly spill into something more threatening at some point. There’s lots of gentle observational humour here, pithy in places, offering an often uneasy, well-realised look at a relationship in quiet crisis. The film is well-written, and never overwritten. These are all notable positives, particularly where indie film often seems to struggle with well-rounded and soundly-edited scripts.
Glue Trap could have used something more dynamic to conclude its story, sure, and no doubt many viewers may feel the same way, but in concluding things with the same irreverent narrative approach taken throughout its runtime, the film does maintain its focus on simply being…stuck. By the time the end credits roll, you also realise that there’s lots in here about the modern inability to disconnect, or to live without all the preoccupations which come down to us via social media. The desire for things like belonging have been superseded, to a large extent, by the desire for fame. The likes of TikTok have created a generation of people who only ever see the finished product – the high point at the end of a long process, not the hard graft it takes to get anywhere worth being. Gotta get that mini dopamine hit by any means; gotta be someone worth noticing, and that desire affects the characters here in a range of ways. There are touches of horror here, some of them brutal, but the film is at its strongest when focusing on its personal stories, and it enjoys its greatest successes during the second act, where things could go in a number of different ways. Overall, this film was a pleasant surprise, a well-written and engaging first feature which does many things very well, and has deserved confidence in its selected approach. Nice work.
Glue Trap (2023) hits digital and VOD (US) on December 17th.