Late at night, a couple gets a call from their daughter Alice, who is distressed after hitting a pedestrian. The rest of the hour and 20 minutes of “Hallow Road” follows the two parents (Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys) driving through the dark countryside, shot in Ireland and Prague, looking for their daughter and realizing they might not be the only ones driving down Hallow Road.
“Hallow Road” is so simple, yet so unique. The film is shot almost entirely in the car, aside from the beginning and end scenes. This makes for a hard execution — but Anvari nailed it. He said the reason he fell in love with the script was because he wanted a challenge. With creative angles, like shooting from above the drivers, Anvari creates suspense for the viewer. The only critique is that we spend a large amount of the movie looking at a phone screen. However, the phenomenal voice acting from Megan McDonnell (Alice), along with Pike and Rhys’ strange performances makes up for that.
“Hallow Road” is folklore, usually told as scary stories in the dark between college-aged kids like Alice, as they hang out in the woods with friends to get high. At first, the woman on the phone is almost comical to the grown adult, resembling a childhood scary story. But as the story progresses from this plot point, it becomes real. “Hallow Road” contains elements of the mysterious and supernatural, forcing the audience to jump back into the headspace of their childhood imaginations.
As described by Rhys, “there’s nothing by the book or normal” in the film. It’s intense, and there’s no escape from the reality — or fantasy — of the film. Rhys said they did a near 60-minute take while filming.
“In a ‘normal film’ there’s always something you’re going to be able to get away to, to save you,” Rhys said. “It’s like doing a play. You have to come with it all done and ready. … That led to the intensity you see on the screen.”
Rhys described Pike as holding an “intimidating intelligence” when interpreting the script and bringing her own personality to it — and that shines through the screen. The “Saltburn” actress is no stranger to a psychological thriller. Pike, as the mother and a recent ex-paramedic, tries to help her daughter save the victim over the phone — but ends up driving the family to tragedy.
The film materializes as whimsical, twisted and strange — there’s nothing quite like it. The ending leaves the viewer with just enough confusion to draw their own conclusions and interpret the film in their own way. Are the folk tales real, or was it all a stoned dream?
3 ½ winding roads out of 5
