Sleeper Recs: Prisoners

“Sleeper Rec” Rules:

• Not nominated for Best Picture.

• Under $200 Million U.S. Box Office.

• Regardless of genre, I’d recommend these films to almost anyone.

Year Released: 2013

Runtime: 154 minutes

Directed: Denis Villeneuve

Produced: Broderick Johnson, Kira Davis, Andrew Kosove, Adam Kolbrenner

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard

Oscars: Only Nominated for Cinematography, and it didn’t even win.

IMDb Plot Summary: When Keller Dover's daughter and her friend go missing, he takes matters into his own hands as the police pursue multiple leads and the pressure mounts.

Prisoners as a Sleeper Rec

The Story and Characters of Prisoners. The story this film tells may be one of the bleakest and darkest in mainstream, “non-horror” cinema in the entire last decade; it is also one of the most philosophically and ethically complex and compelling, containing literary symbolism. The simplicity of the pure evil behind the crime at hand in this anonymous suburb is darkly compelling. Along the way to this truth, we experience a collision of philosophy and symbology and character. Jackman’s Keller Dover is a “salt of the earth, All-American” character who says the Lord’s Prayer when he hunts deer and possibly sings the National Anthem in the shower. This “True American” becomes a metaphor for the worst side of America in the 21st Century and its anachronistic sense of self-righteousness while going to extreme lengths in its pursuit of what it perceives to be justice in an unjust world. Gyllenhaal’s Detective Loki, on the other hand, is covered in cultish tattoos, uniquely dressed, with no personal life and seemingly missing a few key people skills. He represents the pure opposite of Dover, rarely straying from the book, yet also possesses a form of self-righteousness due to his having solved every case up to this point. Ultimately, his methods also prove fruitless, and like Keller, essentially stumbles into the answer hiding in plain sight. The symbol of the maze is important as well, representing evil; Jones and her husband embraced it after their young son died, and Alex and Bob Taylor were so deeply traumatized and scarred by this evil that they still carry it with them. The film’s title, Prisoners, works in tandem with this concept: The Jones’ are prisoners of their own evil; Alex and Bob are prisoners of their trauma as a result; Alex becomes Dover’s literal prisoner; Dover becomes a prisoner of the evil of his own creation; many children have become literal prisoners of the Jones’; and Loki is a prisoner of the rules of policework and of his own ego. This maze of evil and mystery makes prisoners of all who find themselves in it.

For this film to be compelling and morally complex, the characters need to feel authentically human, even when committing terrible acts; this cast rises to the challenge. Paul Dano, one year after his grisly fate in Looper, portrays Alex “Jones” as both worthy and unworthy of suspicion, and is convincing enough in this for the audience to understand Keller’s choices. Viola Davis, Terrence Howard, and Maria Bello bring the tragic gravitas that this film goes to great lengths to portray, helping elevate the story beyond just darkness and corruption into near Shakespearean levels of tragedy and emotion. Melissa Leo gives a very chilling turn as Mrs. Jones and creates a wistfully sad-yet-resigned-to-duty characterization of a monster – there are no typically-portrayed maniacs or lunatics here. Hugh Jackman is terrific as the everyman, survivalist, conspiracy theorist Keller Dover, in honestly some of the most ranged work of his entire career. The film hinges on his descent into darkness, and he keeps the audience from completely writing him off no matter how far he goes. As the film ends, Jake Gyllenhaal’s creation of Detective Loki as a character is what hangs with me the most. The obsessiveness, the blinks, the ticks, the confidence, the frustration; all feel totally unique to this character, and all elevate the film even further than Jackman's performance.

Technicalities. It takes a talented team to make this incredibly twisted story into something watchable, let alone recommendable, but Villeneuve & co. pull it off. Villeneuve is as confidently unhurried in his pacing of this story as he is with Blade Runner 2049, to wonderful effect; this film can be quite beautiful and meditative, turning what could have been a dark mystery into an absorbing character study and commentary on the darkest parts of human nature. The late Johan Johannsson’s score matches and enhances every scene’s mood flawlessly. Villeneuve also allows his actors room to explore and inhabit their characters quite naturally. The production team also chose the perfect nameless Pennsylvania town to set their story in and setting the film around Thanksgiving naturally brings about a very bleak gray; enter Roger Deakins. The best current cinematographer and on the shortlist for the best of all time, Deakins crafts gorgeous images out of dark material and a bleak setting in this film. Technically, every facet of this film seems to be on the same page, creating the perfect mood in every frame.

The Legacy of Prisoners. I won’t belabor the point of how radically dark this film is, except to say that it’s rare that anything has come close since; the stories that do unfold like this are nowadays saved for television shows on streaming services (@ True Detective, mostly). However, this film’s success in theaters and later status as streaming service mainstay hit proved the existence of an audience for well-crafted walks into the darkest corners of life. This film was also when I think we fully began to appreciate the talent that Jake Gyllenhaal possesses, and given that Hugh Jackman portrayed Wolverine in the X-Men movies from 2000-2017 we weren’t really treated to too many performances like this from him. The most important legacy of this movie, however, is the introduction of Denis Villeneuve to American audiences – he has made some of my favorite movies of the decade including Sicario, Arrival, and Blade Runner 2049. For Prisoners though, come for the dark heart of humanity and stay because this movie does dark so damn well.

John’s Highlight Reel

• Thanksgiving. This scene is the perfect start to the film, not just because it introduces most of our characters and gives us the plot’s inciting event, but because of its very patient pace and refusal to cut away once the parents realized they’re living in the ultimate parental nightmare. Immediately after the girls’ disappearance, Villeneuve, Deakins, and Johannsson turn the nondescript suburb into an equally tragic, creepy, and beautiful spectacle as if on a dime the first instant the score kicks in.

• Alex’s prison. Hard to call this a highlight in terms of something I’m eager to re-watch, but Jackman is so incredible in these scenes that I feel obligated to call them out. Davis and Howard are also terrific in these scenes, and while they are each brief, the steady escalation of the violence and Alex’s prison getting larger and more complex are the perfect symbol for what’s going on inside of Dover.

• Candlelight Vigil. Thanks to Villeneuve’s command of mood, and Johannsson’s sublime score, this scene is as effective as anything in the whole film. Beyond just being a dark mystery, this is an emotionally moving film that sinks a different type of hook into the audience: it generates sympathy for characters that will ultimately become monsters.

• Taylor. While the red herring is a classic mystery movie trope, it’s incredibly well-executed in this film and arrives at the perfect point in the story. Taylor’s existence, once you know the truth about him, also works to double down on the sheer trauma caused by the evil that is brought to bear in this film. It’s also in the stretch between him first appearing and him dying that the film enters its most meditative state, before beginning to rush towards the finish.

• “You were there.” This shocking montage of evil images abruptly occurs when Joy is found in the hospital, and there is a palpable shock when we get briefly bombarded with the full weight of the evil that had long been discussed in the film, or experienced secondhand through Alex or Bob Taylor – this is the truest, swiftest hammer of darkness that the film has to offer, and flips the script right onto the audience’s head.

• Drive to the hospital. Roger Deakins and Denis Villeneuve are a hell of a team, that’s all I have to say about this scene. Go YouTube it if you haven’t seen it lately and wonder why every film can’t look this damn good.

• A faint whistle. Another Sleeper Rec, another ambiguous ending. Villeneuve’s equally patient ending to an equally patient film forces the audience to tangle with the extent of Loki’s obsessiveness and if he will search for Dover, imprisoned just feet away from him. What happens if Dover is saved? The fact that we don’t see this is irrelevant; these two men have become prisoners. Cut to black. Magnificent.

Other 2013 Sleeper Recs

• Snowpiercer. Bong Joon-Ho, who recently created and was duly rewarded for one of the best films of the decade, made his first widely seen film in America with Snowpiercer. Featuring an ingenious concept that gives us very clever action scenes, a great lead performance by Chris Evans, and Bong’s unique gift for biting commentary on social class, Snowpiercer is not to be missed. Come for the action, stay for everything else Bong has up his sleeve.

• Rush. Ron Howard created a very up-tempo, breezy chronicle of the James Hunt – Niki Lauda Formula One rivalry (that may have been exaggerated, but hey it’s a movie) that reels viewers into the world of racing only to get them as addicted to the rush that the sport and obsession of perfection brings as its two main characters. Come for the cast, stay for the *wink* rush.

• This Is The End. Just double-checked – no Oscar nominations for this gem. I’m a massive fan of Superbad, but the full Judd Apatow crew doing meta (hopefully exaggerated) impressions of themselves while trying to survive the end of the world is often overlooked. The formula is simple: make up a movie reason to put several funny guys in a house together, and just let them riff in front of the camera. Come for the humor, stay to be reminded that humor is a skill.

• Locke. Tom Hardy all by himself for an hour and a half taking phone calls in a car actually worked, guys. This film’s dialogue and singular performance is utterly gripping, making it a surprisingly good watch. Come for Hardy, stay for Hardy.