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'Regression' Wannabe thriller that fails to thrill
Face-to-face: Face-to-face: Detective Bruce Kenner (Ethan Hawke, right) and sychoanalyst Kenneth Raines (David Thewlis) find evidence of a satanic cult while investigating the rape of a traumatized teen (Emma Watson, left)
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span class="inline inline-center">Face-to-face: Face-to-face: Detective Bruce Kenner (Ethan Hawke, right) and sychoanalyst Kenneth Raines (David Thewlis) find evidence of a satanic cult while investigating the rape of a traumatized teen (Emma Watson, left). (Courtesy of FilmNation Entertainment.)
Regression is a stylish wannabe thriller that neither thrills nor evokes any visual grace in its inert psychological trappings.
An unfortunate waste of its actors' talents, Regression ' the latest from Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar ' cannot seem to decide what kind of movie it wants to be; resulting in a mishmash of paltry horror, prestige TV drama and detective fiction. That it is frustratingly predictable does nothing but secure its spot as a glorified TV procedural.
Taking place in Minnesota in the 1990s, amid the satanic ritual abuse scare that plagued America in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the story focuses on Angela Gray (Harry Potter's Emma Watson, miscast but doing her best with a cliche-ridden character) whose father John (David Dencik) is convinced he raped her, though he somehow has no recollection of the event itself.
The film's other protagonist, detective Bruce Kenner (Ethan Hawke, similarly doing the best he can), investigates the case alongside Kenneth Raines (another Potter alumnus, David Thewlis), a hypnotherapy psychology professor.
Raines' expertise involves regression therapy, a type of hypnosis that aims to uncover buried or suppressed memories. Putting John through this process uncovers something seemingly much-more wide reaching and grievous than a clear-cut abuse case.
This, in Kenner's ambitious eyes, falls in line with Angela's taking refuge in a church, under one Reverend Beaumont (Lothaire Bluteau, not doing much to counter the 'scary priests' trope).
Angela's claims she was meant to be a sacrificial lamb in her family's satanic ritual routine pumps up Kenner's detective instincts. It is far more exciting than the regular small town cases he has to deal with.
At least Hawke injects Kenner with some sort of touch that transcends the script, giving the detective's relationship with the similarly over-ambitious Raines some intrigue, and hints at the clash between the detective's agnostic stance and what he sees as a bunch of deity-worshipping hicks.
But the hokeyness of the story eventually collapses on them. For one, Amenábar starts the story with the same moody aesthetic of high-concept thrillers such HBO's True Detective before jumping off to laughable trash-horror in its middle act, and closing off with flashes of confused drama that is only saved by Hawke and Watson's acting, and barely.
The jumpiness would be acceptable if the underlying sense of mystery managed to retain itself. Instead, the story lays everything on a mistaken sense of audience cluelessness.
The central conceit ' its 'twist', if you will ' is much too predictable and delivered with questionable pacing that places key moments (such as character motive) awkwardly and without any kind of emotional payoff.
This puts the audience always a step ahead of the story and its characters, robbing the movie's already barren sense of momentum.
Simply put, Amenábar's engagement with the issue of mass hysteria and the roles authorial figures play in exaggerating rather than containing irrational fears is much too shallow.
It almost feels like the director only recently discovered the absurdity of the satanic ritual abuse cases and, in thinking it was a fresh perspective, tried to simplify the cases for what he considered to be even-more backward audience members.
No amount of wide shots and temperamental blue hue can mask the fact that Regression feels old hat.
