The Desperate Hour (2021)

Just the other day I was appalled at how the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre invokes a real-life tragedy such as a high school shooting to justify its brand of gratuitous violence. On the other side of the spectrum is a film like The Desperate Hour – a reminder that the most powerful stories about such tragic events don’t focus on violence but on people. The Desperate Hour (which never even makes it physically to the school) doesn’t reach the virtuoso heights of Gus Van Sant’s Elephant or Denis Villeneuve’s Polytechnique, and it fails to do so because it botches the third act, but remains nonetheless a poignant effort. Naomi Watts deserves quite a bit of credit for a performance that is as demanding physically as it is emotionally. She is in every single scene and her voice is almost exclusively the only one we don’t hear coming out of her cellphone; not only does she have to carry the entire movie all by herself, but she literally picks it up and runs with it. As the mother of a student attending a high school where there is an active shooter, this is inevitably somewhat of a one-note role, but sustaining that note without turning it up all the way to 11 is no mean feat; on the one hand her maternal instinct has to take over her every action and word, while on the other her growing concern must never give way to hysterics that will alienate the audience. Watts manages this delicate balance rather well, and her character is never anything other than relatable and accessible. And then comes the contrived third act, where the wheels come off in a way reminiscent to Halle Berry’s 2013 vehicle The Call. Of that movie Roger Moore of The Seattle Times wrote that “It's only when our Oscar-winning heroine puts down the phone and sets out to do some sleuthing of her own that The Call disconnects, turning into something far more generic and far less exciting”; here, Watts doesn’t put the phone down, but it’s who she calls that gives this otherwise fine film a spin that belongs more in a mindless thriller than in a thoughtful exploration of this subject.