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Even with a title that depicts a horror flick, Shadows, sometimes confused with Michael Matteo Rossi’s movie with the same title, is a blend of post-apocalyptic, thriller-and coming-of-age drama centered around three characters.
Mother (Saskia Reeves, Dune, Our Kind of Traitor) together with her two daughters Alex (Lola Petticrew, Dating Amber, My Left Nut) and Alma (Mia Threapleton, Dangerous Liaisons, A Little Chaos) are shifted to a deserted hotel due to some undisclosed catastrophe. They are aware that the Shadows reside beyond the river. Hence they hunt for food at night to supplement what they can grow during the day.
The girls can’t recall a different life. All that remains is their mother, the sole other human being they’ve come in contact with. With Alex being the most restless, the girls are growing older and becoming uneasy. They have started to uncover areas that were previously forbidden to them and found gentlemens’ photographs. This is no good for Alex’s sister, as Alex is already considering venturing out in search of other survivors.
The script of the movie is more like an outlier than a thriller and blends two perspectives together. Even though the movie has a touch of danger, Alessandro Lavagna considers Shadows to be more of a family drama. The merging of characters will be cathartic for the audience as well.
The mother of the girls is creeepily and chaotically aggressive making Alex leave. Alex is not the only one afraid of the dark as the girls have a deep rooted fear towards sunlight. This changes the whole perspective of the movie as the girls who should feel safe are now being put in danger.
Fortunately, all three starred individuals deliver exceptional acting in Shadows. Somehow, those performances help the film overcome some rather typical scenes. However, most of the tasks in the film rests on the shoulders of Mia Threapleton, who delivers a performance her mother, Kate Winslet, would take pride in. She must execute the transition from an frightened adolescent girl to a furious young lady whose single aim is to uncover the truth.
Sadly, that truth when it is finally brought to light, is not as freightening as it was anticipated to be. Some might suggest that this development is rather predictable, and at best, the writers thought of it well before the movie was penned. It does not help that the film is one hour and forty-two minutes, Shadows offer the audience too many hints and too much time to solve them. Cutting off ten odd minutes would have significantly benefitted the film.
Having watched Shadows, I can confidently say that Shadows has a unique showcase of a primary location which I’ll elaborate on later, and it’s amplified by cinematographer James Mather (Lockdown, Nails) and production designer Joe Fallover (The Lodgers, Extra Ordinary) who can evoke an atmosphere of being warm and homely or terrifying and threatening. The day driving scenes are kept disturbingly bright, while the night shots in the woods are vividly atmospheric.
Shadows is fundamentally a people-centric story and not an apocalyptic one, due to the people, it fulfills certain criteria to be a good movie even though the action sequences leaves a lot to be desired and takes a little bit too long to wrap things up. It’s unfortunate that the film could not stick the landing and ended up being underwhelming.
VOD and Digital platforms will feature Shadows beginning on November 15th and it will be made available to US and Canadian users through Red Water Entertainment.
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