AT THE GATES - Mark Reviews Movies

At the Gates, Picturehouse

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 2, 2023

We know what Nico (Ezekiel Pacheco) and Ana (Vanessa Benavente), a son and mother who have been undocumented immigrants in the United States for about 16 years, want. They just want to live lives as fulfilling as possible within the confines of their circumstances, and for the most part, the two have succeeded and seem to have even more promise in their futures.

What we don't know from the proper start of At the Gates is what Ana's employers, an affluent family living in a gated mansion in a wealthy neighborhood, want. For a while, that's the question of writer/director Augustus Meleo Bernstein's movie, which tells a story filled with far more interesting and troubling questions to ask than just that one.

Bernstein approaches some of those ideas in his debut feature, to be sure, but his primary concern seems to be creating tension and eliciting suspense out of both a claustrophobic premise and the mystery of what is or isn't happening in this tale. It's a fine setup—one that forces us to focus more on the motives and struggles of its characters than a bunch of external challenges, obstacles, and threats. The filmmaker's intentionally loaded setup, though, basically demands for something just a bit deeper than what's on display in this thriller.

Maybe that depth is here, though, and another look at the movie, with full knowledge of where it ultimately goes, might reveal additional pieces of character and theme than seems to be there. However, that seems a bit unlikely. For as much uncertainty as there is about what well-to-do couple Marianne (Miranda Otto) and Peter (Noah Wyle) are or aren't up to over the course of this story, their characters, as well as those of their children Lauren (Sadie Stanley) and Oliver (Jack Eyman), are pretty apparent on the surface. They all seem well-meaning, but the only question is whether or not their good intentions hide something sinister or just plain old ignorance.

The premise has Ana bringing Nico along on her regular job of cleaning the wealthy family's house. He'll be going to college soon, so his mother thinks a little work and some extra cash might help him. As the two clean, Marianne seems to be keeping tabs on Nico, noting the tattoo on his neck with a judgmental look, and as for Peter, he's upstairs in his home office, which is off-limits to Ana and Nico—and will remain so for as long as they're there.

As it turns out, they might be stuck in the mansion for a while. Some police officers arrive at the front gate and want to talk to Peter. Marianne sends her cleaners into a bathroom, where they wait and wait some more, until Marianne lets them out and wants to have a discussion.

Peter tells them that the cops were from immigration, and that they know about Ana and Nico. They know Ana works for the family and about their immigration status. They also know where the two live. There are checkpoints around the neighborhood, and it's only a matter of time before the officers obtain a search warrant. Peter and Marianne are willing to hide them here, in a storage room in the basement that only opens from the outside, until hopefully things blow over. In the meantime, the two can just go about cleaning during the day.

If something seems odd about this arrangement, that's pretty much the gist of the plot until the truth of the matter is revealed in the third act. Nico, who has just met this family before becoming a prisoner or a refugee in their home, is certain Marianne and Peter are up to some scheme, so he starts searching for some evidence of it. The dynamic of this is stretched pretty thin, especially because the wealthy couple, as well as their teenage daughter, speak in ways that almost come across as being for the benefit of generating tension. They're either people genuinely worthy of suspicion or exist more as plot devices than actual characters. In the specific way Nico does learn the truth of this situation, the whole setup seems more like a game Bernstein is playing with us than an actual mystery that needs to be solved.

If we accept the gamesmanship of the thriller conceit as just that, though, the movie does have a larger purpose. Far more interesting than the various plot mechanics here are the political implications of this tale, highlighted by what becomes a literal upstairs-downstairs dynamic between these two families. No matter what is actually happening with the immigration officials or some secret plan, the wealthy family behaves oddly around Nico and Ana, not only because of some inherent prejudices (Marianne assumes the two are from Mexico, even after Ana tells her where they're from), but also on account of intrinsic feelings of being better than them.

There's little wonder Nico, who becomes the central figure in a story that tries a bit too hard to show both sides of this dynamic (It's slightly disingenuous when it comes to the rich family, since the plot depends on the doubt surrounding them), suspects them. At the Gates, then, almost works as a thriller with something vital to say, and its point might have been more strongly made with less attention paid to the thriller elements and more to the message.

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