Mark Reviews Movies: EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 1, 2021

There's no hard science behind inventing and implementing an effective twist in a story, but you definitely know a bad one when you see it. There's a pretty bad twist in Every Breath You Take, and we definitely notice it. We have to. The entire movie is built around it.

That's the first mistake of many here—not only for the ultimate failure of the twist itself, but also in terms of the broader story. What we have here is a pretty routine tale about a psychotic stalker, who picks a target and sets out to make life hell for the person and that person's family.

There's nothing special or unique or particularly thrilling about this thriller, which intentionally undermines the possible mystery and suspense by making the villain an obvious one almost from the start. That screenwriter David Murray and director Vaughn Stein accidentally give away the big mystery of the stalker even before he appears on screen just makes the affair even duller.

The eventually targeted family consists of psychiatrist Phillip (Casey Affleck), his real estate agent wife Grace (Michelle Monaghan), and Phillip's troubled teenage daughter Lucy (India Eisley). Three years before the start of the story proper, Grace was involved in a car accident that killed the couple's young son. Since then, the marriage has become rocky, and Phillip has devoted himself to his work.

One of his patients, named Daphne (Emily Alyn Lind), has recovered from a lot of mental health issues. To help, Phillip used a questionable tactic of sharing details of his own life, pain, and trauma with her.

Daphne calls Phillip one day, distraught over the sudden death of her best friend, and later that evening, the police knock on Phillip's door. Daphne is dead in an apparent suicide.

Her brother James (Sam Claflin), who just came from London to visit his sister after a long time away (If you even think of wondering about or questioning the timing of this, you've done more work than Murray), arrives at the scene. He keeps bumping into Phillip and his family at convenient and inopportune times for the rest of the movie. At first, Phillip thinks it's odd. He quickly jumps to the conclusion that James is a psychopath trying to ruin his life.

Does it even need to be said that Phillip, who probably shouldn't jump to such an extreme conclusion based on his profession, is correct in his suspicions? Murray and Stein don't do this material any favors by trying to play both the mystery of James' intentions and the obvious assumptions everyone will draw from decades of stories such as this one. The story sees James get close to a smitten (and especially unthinking) Lucy and make some moves on the still-grieving Grace (Claflin is at least charming enough that we buy the appeal). We know the game, partly because Phillip spells it out for us to his boss (played by Veronica Ferres). We mostly know it because there's no other way for this story to go (Grief is ornamentation or exploited for this tale).

The rest of the plot is just a waiting game—waiting to see how far James will take his scheme to destroy Phillip, what dumb mistakes every other character will make (despite suspecting, knowing, or being directly warned about James), and when all of it will erupt in a violent conclusion. There's another level here, not about what James is (because, again, it's obvious almost immediately), but about another aspect of his character.

That's where the inevitable twist comes into play, and it's dumb on at least three levels. First, there's an important clue that has a contrived, delayed arrival, meaning we can instantly guess what it's going to reveal (The plot would end if it just appeared). Second, there's a dead giveaway when a seemingly important character is mentioned early in the story—but, then, is apparently never seen or referred to again. Third, since James is what he is for the plot and to these characters (a psychotic and violent stalker), the final revelation doesn't change a single thing, making it essentially meaningless to the characters and for the story.

Everything in Every Breath You Take directly or implicitly revolves around this twist—building up to it, (poorly) concealing it, just anticipating the pieces to come into place. By the time it arrives, the twist is as obvious and pointless as we've suspected or known almost from the movie's beginning.

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