By Quin
The Unraveling is the first film written and directed by Thomas Jakobsen. However, he does have a huge list of post-production and editing related credits on IMDB for his work on stand-up comedy specials – quite a few good ones actually, like Mike Birbiglia, Aziz Ansari and Jim Jefferies just to name a few. His co-writer on this one is Justin S. Monroe. Together they have conceived a somewhat engaging suspense tale with a heavy handed dose of morality. The objective seems to be throwing off the viewer and then smacking them with a twist, but if you watch closely, you might figure it all out way before you’re supposed to. However, I wouldn’t be doing you any favors If I didn’t warn you about an ending that might make you angry. For me, it felt like a cheap attempt at making a social and moral statement. Out of respect for all involved in this film, I certainly will avoid any major spoilers, but the structure of this movie requires that I reveal some.
The non-spoilery part is this: the film opens with a guy waking up after a drug-fueled evening next to a woman and a bald guy. The woman is distraught and in bad shape. The man attends to the woman by taking the blanket from the bald guy and giving it to her. When he removes the blanket he notices a big wad of cash next to the guy, who is very passed out. He grabs the money, leaves the girl and returns home. Upon arriving, we meet his pregnant fiancé. She expresses how disappointed she is that he can stay out so long without calling to check in. He lies and says that he had to work extra time, but the good news is he was finally given all that back pay he was owed by his boss. This comes to exactly $6,000. We all know the money belongs to the bald guy. It’s also revealed quite early that Mike (that’s the guy with the wife and the stolen money) has had problems with drugs. Everyone around him thinks he’s clean, but he’s not. The pursuit of drugs is what is making him stay out late, lying to his wife. Now stolen money is about to make his life even worse. Too bad for Mike, Stephen King’s Quitter’s Inc. is only for cigarette smokers. Good thing for his fiancé, she can keep her pinky.
Now we come to one of the tricky parts in recapping this story. I’ll jump ahead slightly and tell you that the movie soon turns into – a ‘group of guys in the woods stalked by a killer’ movie. This is where I slowly eased in and found myself very much along for the ride. The purpose of this wooded testosterone-heavy excursion is to celebrate Mike’s ending bachelorhood. The guys are sitting around the fire, drinking 45-year old Scotch, but Mike keeps finding ways to sneak away and snort his drugs. It could be assumed that Mike’s experience on the trip is possibly similar to Catherine Deneuve’s lonely weekend in Repulsion, until one of the guys ends up dead. It then feels a little closer to Deliverance meets Trainspotting. Is the bald guy after his money? Is there something supernatural going on? Is Mike crazy and imagining it all? After all, the film is called The Unraveling, and that is meant to imply a few different things. Mike’s life is clearly unraveled and now maybe his sanity is too.
The action in the woods is where this film really shines. The direction keeps things moving and the viewer can easily make sense of where things are on screen in a spacial sense. Not completely unlike the dark house in Halloween when Jamie Lee Curtis is up and down the stairs and all over the place, the action in The Unraveling rarely stops (except for flashbacks that begin to piece together what lead to Mike’s drunken stupor). At just under 90 minutes, the film moves along at a nice pace and doesn’t drag. Unfortunately, it relies heavily on overused horror/suspense tropes. Every beat is hit right when you think it will be. It’s like listening to a cover of a well-known song that leaves you just wanting to listen to the original. And speaking of music, The Unraveling is polluted with the most generic yet emotionally manipulative score I may have ever heard in a lower budget suspense film.
Right around the time the group arrives in the woods (before the action starts), the interactions among the characters started to give me an uneasy feeling that I was being preached to- like some big sermon was beginning. My suspicions were correct, but not necessarily in a religious sense; you can decide on that yourself how you interpret it all. But the message in the film is unmistakable. I don’t typically respond to message films disguised as genre films. It’s about as manipulative as that ridiculous score.