When I first saw The Dark Hours in theaters, I remember thinking it was proof of the
shifting hegemony in the realm of genre cinema, away from the US toward
marginal film industries across the world. Produced with public money in the
icy wilderness of Canada, this humble psychological thriller is no novelty, nor
does it hail any sort of historical importance. It is simply an honest and
well-crafted film, with an airtight screenplay that focuses on character
development as key to tension building. There’s also some surprising depth to
the story, which becomes increasingly intricate and dense as the mystery
unfolds, not unlike the highly involving performances offered by every actor
involved. With a series of twists highlighting the introspective nature of the editing,
the final act screeches to a halt, leaving us panting and jarred from a lean,
unrelenting ride that began in the very first shot. From start to finish, The Dark Hours displays none of the fat
that usually impairs similar thrillers. There are no cuts to a police station,
a hospital or a relative’s house. There is only a handful of dedicated actors
and a dynamite script for them to follow. All of these elements help make the
film one of the purest, most efficient genre offerings out there.
A handful of dedicated actors, a good script and
a cabin in the woods is all you need to make a good film.
Samantha Goodman is a brilliant psychiatrist
specialized in criminal pathology, but she’s got one major problem. Her own
brain harbors a tumor, which has started growing after years of stability,
leaving her victim to increasing feelings of helplessness and disorientation.
Following a heated confrontation with a violent inmate from her posh mental
institute during a release hearing, Samantha is ordered to take a well-needed
break away from the stress of everyday life. Her Hippocratic Oath is in
jeopardy you see, because of the cold, nearly inhuman way in which she handled
the controversial case. On a whim, the good doctor then decides to visit her
estranged husband in a remote cabin, where he has barricaded himself to work on
his latest novel. Since the man has enlisted the help of Samantha’s sister
Melody (tasty British Columbian Iris Graham), Samantha drops in very much like
a hair on the soup. But her husband’s hypothetical infidelity soon becomes the
least of her worries as the cabin is invaded by a pair of tormentors lead by
Harlan Pyne, a former patient of Samantha’s who harbors a very specific grudge
against her. Things are simple enough at first, with Harlan turning tables on
his former psychiatrist by submitting her to a series of cruel tests, but the
plot soon thickens, allowing buried secrets to surface and put some unbearable
pressure on Samantha’s already fragile psyche. Will she be able to sustain the
ordeal and save her husband and sister, or will she crumble under the weight of
circumstances? You won’t have to wait so long to find out…
There is nothing superfluous in The Dark Hours, nothing that hasn’t been
carefully planned and thought through. More importantly, there is nothing that
was unduly added, nothing to divert our attention from the crux of the
narrative and the unbearable tension inherent to it. That is truly the biggest
asset of the film, and one that questions the efficiency of all so-called in-camera
thrillers: sustained suspense. I’ve seen films like The Perfect Host, Red State and Devil
recently and they were all self-defeating in the same way, using parallel
editing to transport the action away from where it matters in a bid to
strengthen what is thus revealed to be a weak premise. I never understood why,
at the dramatic height of a scene, one would feel the need to cut away from the
action to an empty police station where dead-eyed deputies are lazily drinking
coffee. To me, such a practice is proof of the director’s inability to really
sustain interest in his own material. It is an admission of powerlessness, and
something that The Dark Hours carefully
avoids.
The screenplay here is nearly flawless,
with the “funny games” device being used in a particularly relevant way. Making
himself out to be the former victim of Samantha’s bad treatments, Harlan’s project
seems justified at times, even more so than the good doctor’s. His insistence
on the “bettering” of his former psychiatrist bears the same undertones as that
of the psychiatric treatment he is mimicking. Hence, the very validity of the
discipline is put into question, especially where it brushes with matters of
ethics. The entire issue of criminal insanity is also put into question here,
with obvious implications for recent news items such as the Connecticut and
Colorado shootings in the US, as well as the Magnotta and Turcotte murders in
Quebec. At the center of the debate is Samantha’s own take on the issue, one
that proves to be absolutely selfish and unprofessional (as is foreshadowed by
the opening scene where she grills a repentant, 15-year inmate). Given such a
complex debate, the ever-elusive notion of nuance becomes crucial in appraising
who the real bad guy is amidst a sea of shifting control and hidden intentions.
Straightforward as it may first appear, the narrative becomes increasingly intricate
as time elapses, and increasingly tied to Samantha’s psychological decay,
raising important issues about moral rectitude in the face of personal drama
and humanity in the dealings with the criminally insane.
The reunion of doctor and patient is crucial in appraising
the role of psychiatry and its relationship to the criminally insane.
The screenplay however wouldn’t have soared
to such heights if it weren’t for two compelling performances by Kate Greenhouse
and Aidan Devine as Samantha and Harlan respectively. Both of their characters
being schizoid in nature, the two actors had the ungrateful task of both
soliciting our sympathy and our disgust, all the while trying to involve our
humanity in the process of appraising their actions. Samantha was once a cold
professional, a woman in control of herself and others. But she is now a
walking specter with decreasing brain functions, and an increasingly slippery
power for self-containment. Greenhouse’s performance is pretty amazing in the
fact that it conveys both these traits almost seamlessly. This very performance
actually landed her a handful of awards across the festival circuit, including
the Best Actress award at Fantasia and PiFan. As for Devine, he manages to
imbue his character with enough charisma to make it round, and not your usual
single-use psycho. His Harlan is no nihilist. Instead, he has a strong sense of
justice, a slightly warped one, but a strong one nonetheless. The softness with
which he issues orders and threats gives us no illusion as to who is truly in
control. It also makes us weirdly sympathetic to his cause, which as I’ve said
before, becomes increasingly justified as the plot unfolds.
Harlan is a human
being, and not a monster. That is crucial to our understanding of the film and
its moral stance, making Devine’s performance equally crucial in conveying that
humanity, a nuanced reality if ever there was one. The three remaining
characters, Samantha’s husband and sister as well as Harlan’s lackey, although
subservient to the tug-of-war between the protagonist and her former patient,
are still crucial to the idea of moral rectitude that permeates the story. Each
of them being romantically involved in a series of incongruous love triangles,
they feed the anger and uncertainties of the two leads, constantly posing
gestures that are heavy with consequences. Theirs might be more subdued roles,
but they are also interpreted with aplomb, leaving almost nothing to be desired
from the cast.
The impressionistic, introspective nature
of editing, the aggressive heightening of background noise to depict Samantha’s
increasing neurosis, and the multi-layered linking of flashbacks contained in
the final act all go way beyond the scope of the typical thriller, allowing the
director to use a fairly limited amount of footage in unsuspected and highly
relevant ways. And while Samantha’s mental ailment allows the screenplay to
twist and turn beyond the scope of reality, it is never used like a cheap
device. In fact, it soon becomes a dramatic epicenter from which narrative
threads are retrieved, woven around, only to return to their source, sort of a
wool ball, which you could scrutinize for hours without finding an end. That
said, the many twists contained near the conclusion will certainly have some
spectators cringing, but for me, they are mere knots in an infinitely complex
whole. They are our partial understanding of something that actually escapes
our grasp. Hence, the film's ability to depict the true nature of
mental illness, and the feeling of desperation one could derive from it. This
causes the psycho killer archetype to deflate into something entirely more
realistic and meaningful, lifting the film up from the depths of formula unto
the higher realm of academics, thus also extending a mirror to the protagonist
in an intricate and somewhat brilliant game of equivalence.
Introspection is the name of the game as Samantha
experiences various levels of consciouness.
The Dark Hours may rely on a dated premise,
but you shouldn’t let that fool you. It is an entirely worthy film, one with
unforeseen depths (both symbolic and ethical), some solid performances by the
two leads, affective editing, cost-efficient production values and a dynamite
screenplay to tie it all together. More importantly, it is perfectly lean, with
absolutely no dull moment and a short runtime (80 minutes) to match. From the
very first shot, the film grips you and it doesn’t let go until the final shot,
curling back on itself when necessary, planting doubts in the foundation of
reality, and eventually shaping up to be both a relevant study of mental illness
and an exploitation thereof for the glory of genre cinema. Some highly
recommended viewing.
***1/2
A nearly perfect thriller based on a surprisingly profound screenplay
interpreted by a talented cast of well-directed actors.
