Review: Into the Forest


Set in near-future Canada where two sisters (Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood) are left to fend for themselves on their property in the woods, while there appears to be a massive electricity outage. An outage that lasts months, with their supplies running out, and two sisters with different ideas on how to use said supplies. Oh look, Michael Eklund has just turned up on their property. He sure looks friendly. Callum Keith Rennie is the girls’ father, Wendy Crewson plays their mother in flashbacks, and Max Minghella plays a nice guy Page is dating who wants her to go away with him to Boston.



Good performances and nice photography don’t quite get this 2015 adaptation of the Jean Hegland near-future sci-fi/drama from writer-director Patricia Rozema (“When Night is Falling”, “Mansfield Park”) over the line. A lot of oestrogen in front of and behind the camera doesn’t add enough of a difference to counter the fact that this has been done to death. The main conflict meanwhile, is completely obvious the moment a certain typecast (but effective) actor first turns up. Still, Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood have excellent chemistry, even if I think it tips closer towards being sexual/romantic than sibling in nature. That could just be me looking too deeply into things (apparently they do have an incestual encounter in the book, so perhaps not), though I think they certainly have stronger chemistry than Page has with Max Minghella. I also think they’re a good decade too old for their roles, but you may not even care about that. Overall it just doesn’t quite add up to a worthwhile whole, despite some of its parts being attractive. Daniel Grant (who has an extensive history lensing short films) has the easiest job in the world just pointing and shooting the wonderful scenery.



More family/woodland survival drama than post-apocalyptic thriller, this girl power/sisterly bonding story has good performances but not a whole lot actually going on. Clichés don’t help, nor does a slow pace. It’s watchable, and I do appreciate that there was an attempt here at a character-based, female-centric approach to this material. It just doesn’t quite come off, and I’d much rather watch “The Trigger Effect” or “The Road”.



Rating: C+ 

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