Mark Reviews Movies: BODY AT BRIGHTON ROCK

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 25, 2019

Pride and an unearned sense of competency can be a dangerous combination. That's the case in Body at Brighton Rock, in which a rather incompetent park ranger tries to prove her ruggedness, only to lose her map, become lost, and end up stranded miles away from where anyone would expect her to be. All of this, by the way, happens in the first act. The ranger only continues to display just how inept she is from there.

Admittedly, not everyone is cut out for what Wendy (Karina Fontes), the young ranger, has to endure. The key distinction is that not everyone willingly puts themselves in the position that Wendy does.

Most people are willing to accept their limits. It might be embarrassing. It might result in people laughing. It might make a person feel exposed and unworthy, but here's one thing that it doesn't do: It doesn't get you stranded in the middle of nowhere, without any help arriving for multiple hours and with only your lack of skills to protect you from the elements, wild predators, and someone who seems creepily fascinated by the dead body you recently discovered.

This notable lack of ability is the foundation of the suspense and tension in writer/director Roxanne Benjamin's movie. It's easy enough to relate to and sympathize with Wendy at the start, when she is the butt of her fellow rangers' jokes and just wants to prove that she can handle a shift out on the trail, instead of being stuck in the visitor center.

It's not a terrible idea, as long as Wendy actually does want to prove herself and puts in the minimal effort to do the tasks at hand. She doesn't seem interested in doing even that much, and that's why it becomes increasingly difficult to find a reason to relate to or sympathize with her gradually perilous plight.

From the start, we do have a reason to suspect Wendy's dedication to and preparedness for the job. She's late to work—again, according to her friend and co-worker Maya (Emily Althaus)—and, also according to her friend, more an "indoors type of person." Despite or maybe because of those doubts about her, Wendy changes duties with Maya for the day, so that her friend can be close to a guy to whom she's attracted. It's just putting flyers up around the trails. What possibly could go wrong?

As it turns out, a lot could and does. A distracted Wendy, more concerned with listening to music and dancing through the woods, is startled by a co-worker, unknowingly drops her map, and decides to climb to the top of a rock formation. She sends a picture to Maya, who doesn't recognize the view.

Wendy has gone way off the path, and also, there's a dead body at the base of the rocks. Help won't be able to arrive until morning, so Wendy will have to spend the night at the scene, contending with cold temperatures, wildlife warnings, and Red (Casey Adams), a hiker who seems adamant about getting a good look at the corpse. It doesn't help that the man on the other end of the radio suggests that she might be looking at a crime scene.

The setup here is promising, even with a protagonist who puts herself into all of this unnecessary trouble just to prove a point. Benjamin creates a sense of dread, by way of strange noises and signs of fierce animals, to go along with the scenario. Fontes' performance definitely conveys a sense of insecurity and naïve assuredness, and up to a point, we're willing to go along with the idea that Wendy simply is in over her head.

There's a fine line, though, between incompetency and stupidity, and by the time Wendy's long night—of anxiety about what could be in the forest and paranoia over things that might be imagined—is finished, the character has crossed over to the wrong side of that line more times than we can credibly stand. The start of it might be when she suddenly yells out, while trying to keep her presence unknown to the stranger standing over the body, but there's also a rather embarrassing episode in which Wendy unleashes a can of bear spray at nothing—and winds up getting doused with the irritant in the process.

Ultimately, all of this is meant to show Wendy's transformation from someone's who's ill-prepared for challenges into one who rises to the occasion. Body at Brighton Rock makes that a difficult pill to swallow, and by the time a wild creature does show up, Wendy only seems to stand a chance because the animal, met with how unqualified she is, appears to take pity on her.

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