Hallow Road Review

Welcome to a nightmare. It’s the one every parent dreads. Their child has done something accidentally which could damage their life forever, and there seems to be little or nothing they can do to protect them. But the couple in Babak Anvari’s Hallow Road are facing all that and more, something that takes them and the film down the most unexpected of rabbit holes.

It’s two in the morning. Husband Frank (Matthew Rhys) is fast asleep when Maddie (Rosamund Pike) takes a call from their distraught daughter Alice (Megan McDonnell). There’s been an accident, she’s hit a pedestrian and desperately needs her parents. In the car and racing to find her at a well-known beauty spot, Maddie talks the increasingly panicky teenager through R techniques, but, in between those instructions, it becomes clear that Alice’s situation is more complicated than they believed. As they race through the night, husband and wife argue ferociously as to the best course of action but nothing can prepare them for what comes next.

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The claustrophobic car interior with a voice on the other end of the phone immediately conjures up memories of Steven Knight’s Locke (2013), taking full advantage of its potential for tension. And the real-time drive into the unknown is as taut as a drum, holding the audience in a vice-like grip that refuses to let go but which also challenges them to figure out the reality of the situation. For the majority of the time, all we see is the couple in the car, Alice’s photograph smiling back at them from the mobile phone (her voice is in complete contrast), and the occasional lights – the indicator arrows on the dashboard, a gruesome red traffic light washes over the interior. Sound tells us everything else, and, like the parents, we have to work out what the noises and, even more significantly, the silences actually mean.

The journey continues, relationships unravel, and the stress cranks up to 11 as the light on the cinema screen dims and, like the couple, we’re squinting into the darkness, trying not to miss a movement or gesture. Knuckles turn white, and nerves start to shred as the destination comes closer, along with the prospect of the family losing everything. This is when Anvari steers them into questioning the lengths to which they’d go to keep their child safe and the effect their decision makes on them. He mixes it with something that comes closer to folk horror, one that makes for an awkward fit until you watch the credits – and watch them you must. They’ll make you question everything you’ve seen in the past hour and a half.

The riveting narrative is anchored in two star turns from Pike and Rhys, one moment distant to the point of secretive, the next at fiery odds over how best to help Alice. They’re utterly compelling and, while you warm to neither, you’re only a blink away from wondering what you’d do in their situation. There may be a few weak links in the script, but at no point do they prevent Hallow Road from being a must-see and one of the most gripping films of the year so far. Fasten your seatbelts.