Review: ‘The Swerve’
Sitting in a classroom surrounded by distracted and disinterested students, one of them impassively reading a passage from Dante’s Inferno, Holly (Azura Skye), a high school teacher, is clearly at her wits’ end. Describing Dante’s trek through a dark and symbolic “savage forest”, the passage her student is reading couldn’t have been more relevant, for Holly is stuck in a twisted forest of her own. Dark, dense and difficult, it is an abyss built by her deepest insecurities and her darkest fears, with no light at the end of the tunnel.
‘The Swerve’, the directorial debut of Dean Kapsalis, is essentially a suburban retelling of Dante’s Inferno, throwing its protagonist into a one-way trip to hell with no apparent end in sight. A disturbingly bleak portrait of a woman descending into madness, ‘The Swerve’ charts a week in the life of Holly, a wife, a mother, a sister and an English teacher, as she attempts to navigate through life in as graceful a manner as possible. Plagued with flashbacks of a violent car accident, mistreated and rebuffed by her teenage sons, undermined by her sister and mother, and constantly gaslit by her husband, who she suspects is cheating on her, Holly tries her best to stay poised and composed throughout it all.
From the outside looking in, it may seem like Holly has it all – a successful husband, a stable career, children with potential and a picture perfect home – but appearances can be deceiving and the miserable, despondent Holly soon starts to seek happiness in other places and people, including her earnest student Paul (Zach Rand). Skye is phenomenal as Holly, turning in a blistering, searing performance as a woman unsatisfied with life and her decisions. It is a tricky role to play, one that requires the empathy of the audience in order for the film to work, and Skye cuts a more than heartbreaking figure, fearlessly diving into the role and emerging with a powerful portrayal of insecurity and mental illness.
As Holly’s ambivalent, apathetic husband Rob, Bryce Pinkham brings some much-needed clarity and authenticity to a role that could have easily been one-dimensional in a less than capable actor’s hands. Despite his constant mistreatment of her, Rob clearly still cares for Holly and Pinkham does his absolute best to make sure that translates well on-screen. Rand, on the other hand, is boyishly charming as a hapless student with a crush on his teacher while Ashley Bill, portraying Holly’s underachieving sister Claudia, delivers an electric performance as the catalyst to so many of Holly’s gripes and insecurities.
Aided by a gorgeous, haunting score from Mark Korven (‘The Witch’, ‘The Lighthouse’) and a devastating, unforgettable ending that will stay with you far after the movie ends, ‘The Swerve’ is an unsettling, heart-wrenching journey into the depths of the personal hell we oftentimes find ourselves thrust into. Expertly crafted and tightly paced, it also cements Kapsalis’ status as an exciting new name in the horror genre and one to definitely pay attention to.
Rating: 4/5
The Swerve will be released on VOD on September 22.