Soundproof

Grade: B-

Within the movies I see, there tends to be a subset group. Due to budget, or not being attached to a major studio, they don’t have nearly as much visibility as your Mission: Impossibles or Transformers, but I enjoy the majority. From this year alone, I’m particularly thinking of The Outwaters, Palm Trees and Power Lines, Of an Age, and especially Beautiful Disaster. I wouldn’t call any of these the best movies of the year, but they are all interesting under-seen and under-publicized ones. Diverse, too. What a gamut.

I can add Soundproof to that list. It has only 5 critic reviews on IMDb. Mine will be the sixth. Information about the production, and experience of the cast/crew is surprisingly lean. (Did they not do any interviews, or press?) I didn’t recognize any faces, though at least a couple of them reminded me of some big names. And yet, it lives and breathes with its own pulse.

It opens with two characters – Jo and Kevin – returning home from a late and lively night at the bar. Kevin handcuffs Jo to the bed and is in the process of doing something without her consent, and almost succeeds, until Jo’s daughter Izzy sneaks up behind and strikes him in the head, killing him. Kevin had a turbulent, crime-filled past, which makes Jo and Izzy hesitant to go to the police. They figure their best option is to disappear.

Soundproof is a gritty crime drama with hints of a reflective road-tripping character study, like Tumbleweeds, Bones and All, and even Where the Crawdads Sing. The actors probably aren’t anybody you’ve heard of, but when I played the “who does each actor look like” game, Christian Bale and Octavia Spencer immediately came to mind. I would welcome an Americanized remake one day (the thick British dialect had me turning on the captions) with Bale, Spencer, and others.

Directors Mark Hayman and Margaret Rogerson know their way around a camera. This appears to be their first credit, with apparently no upcoming projects. There are so many ways Soundproof could have been unintentionally funny, but the cast and crew present everything with sincerity and commitment. The locations are beautiful. The score does its job without being intrusive. This is a team that deserves more opportunities. There’s something here.

Grade: B-