Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Nora Kirkpatrick
Starring: Alexandra Daddario, Daveed Diggs, Josh Gad, Ashley Park, Kevin
Pollak
A Tree Fell in the Woods, the feature debut of writer/director Nora Kirkpatrick,
tees off with a fascinating premise. Except it turns out that initial
premise isn't actually the real premise after all. Kirkpatrick's debut
teases intriguing ideas at several points only to instantly dismiss them
as it searches for the heart of its scattershot story. If screenwriting
students were tasked with identifying the inciting incident here they'd
likely go mad, as the movie has several moments that make us think
"Okay, it's about to kick off," only for them to be subsequently
squandered.
It opens like a low-budget horror movie, with two couples arriving at a
remote cabin to see in the New Year. The couples appear mismatched.
Businessman Mitch (Josh Gad) and publishing editor Debs (Alexandra Daddario) are cerebral over-thinkers while their respective spouses, influencer
Melanie (Ashley Park) and photographer Josh (Daveed Diggs), are laid back, impulsive, and a little vacuous.
We know that when a group of movie characters head to a remote cabin
that the shit will inevitably hit the fan, and dung is flung when Mitch
and Debs return from a stroll in the woods (in which they're almost
killed when the film lives up to its title) to see Melanie and Josh
getting jiggy through the window. An enraged Debs wants to storm in and
confront the cheaters, but because he's all too aware of his limited
appeal and doesn't want to blow his relationship, Mitch persuades Debs
to keep shtum. He somehow convinces her that despite looking like
Alexandra Daddario, her post-divorce future would be as bleak as that of
someone who looks like Josh Gad.
The premise of two betrayed parties holding in their anger and sharing
a weekend away with their unfaithful spouses should be mined for comedy
gold. And initially it is, with Daddario very good at exercising Debs'
passive aggression towards Josh and Melanie. But the film almost
immediately does away with this setup as the truth comes out. We then
get what seems like an equally promising setup when the two couples find
themselves snowed in and forced to spend New Years' Eve together. But
the movie can't find anywhere interesting to take what should be a
winning premise.
At a certain point we think the film is about to take a surprisingly
dark turn when Mitch finds some bottles of home-made hooch in the
basement. The rot-gut has the effect of spinach on Popeye, instantly
giving him a newfound confidence, which he uses to declare his long
withheld love for Debs. Despite being played for laughs, the slim frame
of Debs being pinned against a wall by the hulking Mitch is unsettling
and creepy, and Gad's performance is more scary than pathetic.
Both Mitch and Josh come off as assholes here, so we want Debs and
Melanie to get as far away from these jerks as possible. But the movie
itself doesn't really see it that way, and the conclusion it eventually
comes regarding the future of these couples seems randomly drawn from a
hat of possible outcomes. While Gad and Diggs simply lean into the
cartoonish nature of their awful characters, Daddario and Park at least
bring some depth to these seemingly long-suffering women.
For a movie that puts two genders and three ethnicities in such a tense
scenario, it has very little to say about gender dynamics and absolutely
nothing to say about race, no doubt another case of disingenuous
colourblind casting. The nerdy white guy with an Asian partner is a
stereotype the film never acknowledges, nor does it make anything of the
idea of said white nerd being cucked by a black stud. There's a far more
interesting and confrontational version of this story to be made, but
it's probably not going to come from an American filmmaker. Daddario and
Park emerge from this fiasco with credit in the bank, but their
performances deserve a film that knows what it wants to say.
