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BLOODLINE (2019)
Director: Henry Jacobson Cast: Seann William Scott, Mariela Garriga, Dale Dickey, Raymond Alexander Cham Jr., Kevin Carroll, Christie Herring MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:35 Release Date: 9/20/19 (limited) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 19, 2019 Co-writer/director Henry Jacobson opens Bloodline with the particularly gruesome murder of a nurse, naked and in the shower. It doesn't become any less bloody from there, but Jacobson and fellow screenwriters Avra Fox-Lerner and Will Honley aren't just here for the gory thrills. There's a fascinating, disturbing study of the effects of abuse—both of the obvious and hidden kinds—and the potentially insulating nature of family that drives this sordid tale of a serial killer at home and at his work. The killer is Evan (Seann William Scott), a husband to Lauren (Mariela Garriga) and a new father to a baby son. The gimmick to his killing is that he only targets those who abuse children. Evan's job as a social worker at a local high school, sadly, gives him several candidates—a father who regularly beats his son, an uncle who molests his niece, another father whose addiction to pain killers overtakes his better judgment. Through fractured flashbacks, we come to understand that Evan is a survivor of abuse, too, at the hands of his father, whom Evan seemingly killed. Meanwhile, Evan's mother Marie (Dale Dickey) is staying with the first-time parents to help. The relationship between mother and son is, to put it politely, a little odd. With the two living under the same roof again, Lauren starts to notice. The mechanics of the plot are those of a thriller, in which Evan, played with quiet and eerie detachment by Scott, tries to hide his murders from his wife and, later, the police. The core of the story, though, is one of pain and trauma. It does not ask us to sympathize with Evan, only to understand the reasons for his murderous impulses. As for that opening scene with the nurse (a flash-forward within the narrative, by the way), the actual truth of it reveals that Evan's tendencies for killing might be based on unending abuse. In terms of the film as a thriller, Jacobson's technique is solid, especially in two sequences involving somewhat deceptive editing (One is just clever cross-cutting, and the other implements a split-screen). The resolution of Bloodline (featuring a sort-of twist that doesn't stand up to scrutiny) might hinge a bit too much on that mindset, but the story of this man, his painful past, and his twisted family certainly grounds the film in some discomforting reality. Copyright © 2019 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for strong bloody violence and disturbing images, graphic nudity, and
language)
