Prisoners: Difficult to watch but incredibly beautiful

MANILA, Philippines - It has been quite a while since I have found a movie that I can spend two hours with without regretting it later. Must be because we just ended summer which tradition dictates must have loud, testosterone-powered action flicks fed to out of school kids. Now with the arrival of the last few months of the year, we will finally start getting the meaningful, affecting films. 

This is not because the kids are back in school and will most likely not be watching. It is because the best chance that these pictures have of recouping their costs is to figure prominently in next year’s awards season. That happens around January to March. So September onwards should be excellent. And this year’s season has now begun with Prisoners.

On the other hand though, why did it have to be Prisoners. What a beginning this turned out to be? Sure it has two of the screen’s biggest leading men in the lead roles, Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal, with Terence Howard as a bonus and it is so incredibly beautiful. But at the same time, it is also so difficult to watch. It is too soon to tell if it will become one of those great films that I cannot bear to watch again, but that is how I feel right now. Just as the story is one I would never wish to happen to anybody, Prisoners is so emotionally draining, I have no wish to relive the experience.

The story centers on two families typical of American suburbia, the Dovers, father Keller, mother Grace and children Ralph and Anna and the Birches, father Franklin, mother Nancy and children Eliza. They get together for Thanksgiving dinner and it was during this that the two younger girls, Anna and Eliza, disappear. They were just off in search of a red whistle and then they were gone. 

The incident sets the tale in motion. The panic begins. The police are called in. Volunteers around the neighborhood join the search. The mothers fall into helplessness, Nancy into catatonic silence. Grace into a drug-induced rest. The men descend into despair unable to play their traditional roles as protectors. Franklin is able to grasp the fact that there are things that morality and the law dictate he cannot do. But not Keller. He has failed his family and will take matters into his own hands to change that.

The story is one that we had already seen before.  Gone, Baby, Gone and Mystic River are recent examples. I was also reminded of some episodes from Law And Order SVU and The Killing on TV. But Canadian director Denis Villanueve has put together his astute filmmaking skills with such an excellent ensemble of actors that added up to one of the most suspenseful, thought-provoking and utterly nerve-racking films ever seen.

Largely responsible for this is Hugh as Keller.  You know who he is. Mutant action hero as X-Men Wolverine. Song and dance man as Academy Awards host and Jean Valjean of Les Miserables. Tall, dark and just a tad less classically handsome, Hugh is the ideal movie star. So what is he doing in a role that should have gone to Sean Penn? He is proving himself an actor.

No he is more than that. Hugh so inhabits Keller Dover that the character becomes flesh and blood,  throb with anger, fear and frustration as the seconds tick by. He changes right before your eyes from caring family man to manic jailer as he tries to ferret   challenged young man who drives an RV sighted in the neighborhood. You want him to get the answer but his performance is so fascinating to watch you would much rather find out how Keller will cope with the next clue or a dreaded dead end.

An Oscar aura now surrounds Hugh. He is certainly a hot contender but he is not the only member of the cast worthy of the buzz. Jake as Loki, the detective assigned to the case, is not to be disregarded. I see echoes of his Zodiac character here but more riveting and like that twitch he chose to adopt, very discomfiting. He is not really part of the drama but he is the one through which the audience unravels the clues and with whom they take life-threatening risks. And like the emerging answers, he is not a pretty sight. Loki has seen it all and Jake plays him clothed in the pain he is unable to express.

Helping realize the full potentials of these performances, note that Paul Dano as the driver of the RV is also excellent, are the creepy atmosphere set by the cinematography of Roger Deakins, the clever twists and turns of the script by Aaron Guzibowski and the impatience inducing way that Villanueve sewed up the story. All these are major contributions to the chilling results. That is why I believe that even more important than the thought of awards is the success of Prisoners as a thrilling tale of horror and revenge. It is an oddity. After all, it is not often that we get a brilliant piece of filmmaking that is also an engrossing whodunit.