Written and directed by Cairo Smith in his feature length directorial debut, Screwdriver is a paranoid psychological thriller that felt it was both an analogy as well as something that told a story in its own right. It was one of those movies where I sat there thinking that it was likely to cause me some headaches trying to write a review.
After the sudden implosion of her long term marriage, Emily (AnnaClare Hicks) seeks refuge with an old school friend, Robert (Charlie Farrell - American Horror Story TV show). He invites her to spend a few nights at him and his wife's (Melissa, played by Milly Sanders - The Daughters of Virtue) home. Both highly intelligent and driven people, the couple have their odd quirks, such as Melissa being very highly strung, but seem happy to have Emily stay. As the days pass, Emily begins to strangely act more and more passive and suggestable, while the couple both begin to increasingly gaslight and bully her, hidden beneath a veneer of love.
Outside of one small scene, the entire movie features just the three characters, with almost the entire film taking place within the confines of the rich couples perfect home. It was really hard to get a read on Robert and Melissa, their behaviours alter over the course of the film, and there seemed to be some sort of hidden friction between the two that is never explained. What is more clear is that they don't appear to have Emily's best interests at heart at all. It isn't even something as simple as Melissa being jealous of the closeness Robert shares with his former apparent best friend, as she feigns a lot of love for the girl also. Melissa seems committed to breaking down the girl's self confidence by her hot and cold behaviour, while Robert seems more involved with wanting to destroy Emily's strong religious beliefs. By the film's conclusion it is obvious what their plan for the girl was, without it being explicitly spelt out.
Normally in films like this, the protagonist will reach a breaking point when they realise something untoward is happening, but that doesn't happen here. As the viewer I was concerned with this character, especially with her behaviour changing so drastically by the second act, with it seeming she is secretly being drugged by the pair. I loved Hicks here, she has to change her character a lot over the course of the movie, and does so in a way that made you still care about her even when she is spiralling into almost madness.
The tipping point of the film came during a therapy session that Emily has with Robert. He performs this thought experiment that made for the most unsettling part to be found (especially with how it feeds into later events of the film), with his cruelty coming to the forefront when he coldly states to the psychologically weakened girl that "God hates you."
I won't pretend to understand the analogy that the film was going for, but it seemed to be a statement perhaps about the treatment of women in modern society. Emily is a stand-in for women who are told to stay at home and not worry about anything out of the family unit, with the couple maybe representing society or government, reducing Emily to almost the state of a child. The abuse she suffers is never physical, but the way her defences are slowly ground down over the ninety minutes makes for a disturbing feeling, with heavy use of gaslighting and fake kindness and care. There were slight whiffs of Mother! to me, but this is far more story focussed than that mess of a movie.
I found the characters of Robert and Melissa to be a little too confusing to really understand. Elements such as the friction between the pair, and how they seemed to naturally fall into their abusive roles without having foreknowledge that Emily would be seeking Robert out in the first place went over my head a bit. It is slightly inferred that she isn't their first victim.
The film is full of long scenes of dialogue but this never felt like a slow burn, and while I can't pretend to have understood parts of this, the way it is paced out felt efficient, and the dialogue, which sounded a bit like characters were reading lines from an essay, even if what they were saying was interesting. With fantastic actors in the lead roles, and some great directing, this was quite the ride. Screwdriver becomes available across North America on Cable VOD and Digital HD today.
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