Many parents would do just about anything to protect their children from harm – but it is a terrifying thought to consider what “anything” might entail. Would you lie to a teacher on their behalf to ensure their future academic career wasn’t put in jeopardy? Sure, maybe. But would you help them cover up a death? Well…hopefully you took a little longer to answer that one. The thought of your child having to bear a trauma that would affect the rest of their lives is unthinkable and tends to kick those parental instincts for protection into overdrive. It is within the state of this adrenaline-fueled panic that director Babak Anvari’s Hallow Road exists – a masterful exercise in the primal fear of a parent who knows, deep down, that they can’t truly protect their child from everything.
Starring Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys in a pair of brilliant performances as the two beset parents, the movie begins with a largely dialogue free meditation on an unassuming suburban home asleep. Food still out on the counter and broken glass swept up on the floor reveal a night interrupted by a fight – while each parent asleep in separate rooms sets the stage for the tension to follow. When their daughter calls, informing them that she’s hit someone while driving the backroads back to university, the movie begins a descent into parental madness that doesn’t let up until the final shot.
The film accomplishes this by confining the majority of its run time to the interior of the car as they drive in roiling terror towards their daughter, frantically hoping to fix the situation. This serves to trap the audience in the parent’s horror as the nature of the fight slowly unfolds and their lives spin wildly out of control. There is a supernatural “twist” of sorts that takes place about three fourths of the way through but, up until then, all of the parents’ concerns are decidedly commonplace – a strength that makes the film’s portrayal of parental fear and guilt all the more powerful. The supernatural element is kept subtle, used more as a device to pull the audience deeper into the psyche of a parent who must face the fact that their child’s life is forever scarred.
Enough cannot be said about the lead (and, largely, sole) performances. Pike plays an obviously traumatized EMT whose own demons scratch at the surface of each piece of rational advice she tries gives her daughter. This is juxtaposed brilliantly against Rhys’ frantic businessman who’s terribly unprepared to address the problem at hand, offering numerous unreasonable solutions to a life or death situation. Anvari’s direction uses several delightful camera tricks to keep the action moving while his stars luxuriate in moments of panic, hope, doubt, and finally cosmic terror. I found the entire ride to be relentlessly harrowing.