Hallow Road review – Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys race to rescue daughter in cracking thriller

Shot almost entirely inside their car, Pike and Rhys play a splintering couple trying to save their terrified teenagerHow encouraging that whatever state our film industry is considered to be in, it can still find space for a crackingly good script from a supersmart, disciplined first-timer who’s clearly been working on it for a while, planing down the edges and trimming away the fat through successive drafts. Hallow Road is the kind of property that often emerges after a spell on Hollywood’s “Black List” of much admired but as yet unproduced screenplays. It is a gripping, real-time suspense thriller with a twist of the macabre, a film about family guilt and the return of the repressed, written by National Film and Television School graduate William Gillies, a scary-movie enthusiast who here makes his feature script debut. British-Iranian film-maker Babak Anvari directs and Matthew Rhys and Rosamund Pike give forthright, excellent performances as the two leads.Rhys plays Frank, a stressed executive married to Mads (Pike), a paramedic. They have one child, Alice, a troubled and vulnerable student played by Megan McDonnell who only appears in the film as a terrified voice on the end of the phone – that being a jarring contrast to her perky leave-a-message voice which her anguished parents keep reaching. Her smiling face which comes up on their phone is also, we can assume, a jarring contrast to her actual face. Continue reading...

Comments

Culture

'Charm aplenty in quirky tale' - Review: Goodbye Dreamland Bowlarama, Oran Mor

The Herald

Comments

Similar News

From The Philospher's Stone to the Deathly Hallows: All eight Harry Potter films, ranked

Culture

'Charm aplenty in quirky tale' - Review: Goodbye Dreamland Bowlarama, Oran Mor

Gaelic arts organisation Fèisean nan Gàidheal names new CEO

Virgin Island star defends Channel 4’s controversial show after heavy backlash

You can binge all 12 episodes of sci-fi thriller fans called a ‘masterpiece’

I Kissed A Boy’s trans contestant isn’t hoodwinking anyone

Murderbot cast, plot and episode guide for new Apple TV sci-fi series

Netflix’s Fred and Rose West documentary tells us nothing new

I found the new Final Destination incredibly relatable for a painful reason

Why Is The UK So Bad At Eurovision?

Rebecca Solnit: ‘Fiction was always treated as the most important, literary, aspirational goal – f*** that’

'I started out copying Bugs Bunny' - Artists set for double show in city gallery

Richard Gadd: My next show will be 'more dramatic' than Baby Reindeer

'We're not helpless victims': Europe-first Palestine art museum to open in Edinburgh

The future of Frieze: will its $200 million sale transform the art fair?

Who will win Celebrity Traitors? Our top bets, ranked from doomed to most devious

Sir Mick Jagger’s company to produce Miles Davis movie starring Damson Idris

Jane Eyre at Sadler’s Wells: 'thickets of men blunt the emotional force'

Tina Turner musical to close in London’s West End after seven years

Eurovision winner Nemo: ‘My song has given queer and non-binary people a home’

BBC’s ‘best crime drama ever’ vows to be even better in season 3

Traitors fans ‘gutted’ one rumoured celebrity won’t be taking part

Jeremy Clarkson addresses Kaleb Cooper’s future on Clarkson’s Farm after concern

Bollywood fears huge impact of Trump’s tariffs on foreign films

Lucy Worsley fears that women’s rights haven’t improved enough since Austen’s time

Cassie Ventura, singer and Diddy’s former girlfriend, is at the heart of the mogul’s sex trafficking trial

Miquita Oliver says she almost appeared on Strictly Come Dancing but BBC ‘went with someone else’

An open letter from a King Creosote fan: Please, Kenny, don't become our Morrissey

1536 at the Almeida Theatre review: Ava Pickett's debut play is electrifying

19th Century Japanese artist takes over the Outernet

Netflix series Monsters: The Menendez brothers are now eligible for parole

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning receives mixed first reactions

Gripping crime drama fans called utterly addictive ‘facing axe after one season’

James Whale celebrates birthday after saying he’ll be ‘lucky to make it to Christmas’

Celebrity Traitors full-line up revealed: Stephen Fry, Charlotte Church, Ted Lasso star and more

Nicolas Cage transforms into NFL star John Madden in new biopic

Former Oasis bassist Andy Bell says he’s joining Noel and Liam Gallagher for reunion tour

Sweden, Ukraine and the Netherlands among qualifiers for Eurovision final

Eurovision fans want ‘justice’ for Switzerland after semi-finals chaos

The 31 most mind-blowing film twists of all time, explained

Juliette Binoche says Gerard Depardieu is ‘not a monster’ after guilty sexual assault verdict

‘Silent’ pro-Palestinian protest to be held in Basel streets during Eurovision

Bullying, long hours and no jobs: Inside the TV industry’s mental health crisis

Key looks from the Cannes Film Festival red carpet

BBC boss vows to tackle Britain's 'crisis of trust'

How can traditional British TV survive the US streaming giants?

A tale of murder, artificial intelligence, & forgiveness

What we misunderstand about gun violence

'Forever' is a frank and lovely take on teen romance

Rosamund Pike says she was asked to ‘unzip and drop’ her dress during James Bond audition

Goofy sci-fi comedy Murderbot might just take your mind off the coming AI apocalypse

Inside Netflix’s Fred and Rose West documentary: ‘There are huge, huge lessons here’

A century of Clarissa: Why Mrs Dalloway will forever fascinate us

Netflix users left confused as Black Mirror episode is removed for good

Coronation Street and Emmerdale announce historic interactive crossover episode

Celine Dion makes rare appearance at Eurovision semi-final with special message to fans

Fred and Rose West: A British Horror story is lazy, cynical and misleading true-crime

Sean Penn says he’d work with Woody Allen again ‘in a heartbeat’ despite sexual abuse allegations against director

The Comedy About Spies at Noel Coward Theatre review: bungling, buffoonish hilarity

The Celebrity Traitors line-up is a game-changing moment in television

The Simpsons writer Steve Pepoon dies unexpectedly outside his home aged 68