Ray
Marrow’s hometown is sort of like a Coal Country Twins Peaks. They are still
obsessed with the disappearance of July Rain Coleman, years after the cheerleader’s
disappearance. The recently returned soldier does not have time for such true
crime nostalgia, because he is too busy grieving his late wife and trying to up
his mediocre parenting game. Unfortunately, his son’s mysterious knowledge of
Coleman will pull them both into the mysterious cold case in Jason Noto’s Beyond the Night (trailer here), which opens this
Friday in Los Angeles.
Frankly,
Marrow probably already has some issues to work out from his service in Syria, even
before his wife was struck down in a hit-and-run accident. Despite being a
protective father, Marrow is still awkward around their son Lawrence, but he is
not shy about administering a little payback to anyone who gawks at the young
boy’s birthmark. They are moving back to Marrow’s home town, which his son
never visited before. Yet, he seems to recognize many of the landmarks and
people.
A
little déjà vu is all fine and good, but when Lawrence starts talking about the
missing (presumed dead) Coleman, it causes quite a stir, especially with her thuggish
father Bernie. When the boy claims to remember her “from before” the
out-of-town child psychologist concludes his past-life memories are resurfacing
due to his recent trauma. Marrow does not want to hear that kind of woo-woo
talk, but the anguished Coleman will grasp at any straw for answers.
Arguably,
Beyond continues a minor trend of
indie thrillers, like Lost Child,
that have respect for Red State Americans and military veterans (even if it is
always assumed they have PTSD). People in Noto’s film generally respect cops
and God, probably even Bernie Coleman. Lost
Child is a particularly apt comparison, because both films offers a slyly ambiguous
take on their possible supernatural elements. It would be an exaggeration to
call Beyond a blue-collar analog to
Branagh’s Dead Again, but there are
some parallels.
Zane
Holtz is convincingly tightly-wound as Marrow, but Azhy Robertson is quite
remarkable, in a completely natural, unaffected way, as the troubled young
Lawrence. Tammy Blanchard is reliably down-to-earth as Marrow’s sheriff’s
deputy sister, Caroline. Yet, Chance Kelly is the real standout as the grieving
Coleman. The subtle shadings and emotional range of his performance make it
difficult to pigeon-hole Coleman as a traditional villain, which in turn,
complicates the film’s dramatic dynamics.
As
thrillers go, Beyond is unusually
thoughtful and sensitive. It is also a bit slow out of the blocks. If Noto can
maintain his empathy and human insight while cranking up the pacing in future
films, he will really be on to something. Regardless, Beyond the Night is an intriguingly hard-to-pin-down thriller, well
worth the time of indie fans when it opens this Friday (1/11) in the LA-area,
at the Glendale Laemmle.
