Review by
Sue Finn
Directed by: Max Strand
Starring: Pamela Jayne Morgan, Juliette Alice Gobin, Peyton Michelle Edwards, Paul C. Kelly, Rafe Soule
A distressed woman makes an escape from some sort of basement lair;
meanwhile a truck driver, Dawn, is struggling to stay awake as she bombs
down the dark freeway. Eventually she gives up and pulls into Chocohan
State Park, NY to eat a late night salad in the cab of her ‘Nates
Haul-N-Go’ truck.
She updates her client on the status of the trip before attempting some
shut-eye, but she is awakened by disturbing sounds outside.
Another distressed woman approaches the truck asking Dawn for water and to
call the police. Getting off on the wrong foot, things are tense when she
drops and breaks Dawn's phone, and then climbs into the truck insisting on
‘help’.
They form an uneasy truce as Dawn agrees to take her to a police station
as the woman, Phoebe, explains she was kidnapped four months prior and
kept captive ever since. She finally managed to escape and needs to report
the crime to the police.
Things take a turn for the worst when Dawn loses her keys and Phoebe
panics; she is rightfully terrified that her kidnapper will come across
them there in the park.
They end up hiding in the back of the truck, where Dawn asks for the
lowdown on what happened to Phoebe and how she ended up imprisoned in
someone’s basement for months.
Before the explanation can get any kind of headway however, they are
stumbled upon by two druggie knuckleheads who make things worse for the
women and engage in a little casual humiliation of Dawn as she attempts to
bargain with them for their phone.
She gets angry at Phoebe for some unknown reason, who appeases her by
telling her the kidnap story. It seems some teen hijinks led to a death,
which in turn imprisoned an embittered man who escaped and turned the
tables on young Phoebe. This man was her kidnapper and he’s still after
her; and now, Dawn is also firmly in the crosshairs.
Essentially a two-hander, this debut effort from writer/director
Max Strand (co-written with Todd Rawiszer) is a tense affair
that makes fine use of its limited budget and confined locations. There
are some genuine shocks and while not all of it works, the majority of it
does, and well enough to forgive the clunkiness of some of the plot
machinations.
The acting is also well above average across the board with the two leads
- Juliette Alice Gobin as Phoebe and Pamela Jayne Morgan as
Dawn - doing the majority of the heavy lifting, and succeeding in giving
us characters we can believe in.
On the negative side of things, the script feels somewhat episodic and
sometimes the nonsensical behaviour (mostly at the beginning) is
distancing, but it is still a unique and interesting story with a solid
and satisfying finale.
Midway through my viewing a friend came into the room and was transfixed
from the moment she glanced at the movie. If that isn’t the sign of a
compelling film than I don’t know what is.
Well worth flagging down.
Goodbye Honey is on US VOD from May
11th. A UK/ROI release has yet to be announced.
