J.J. Abrams and his famed "mystery box" have been
kicking around for more than his Star Wars and Star Trek blockbusters.
He's played the hand of total secrecy before with a pair of smaller monster
flicks, Super 8 and the found footage
thriller, Cloverfield,
the latter the subject of sequel rumors for years after. 10 Cloverfield Lane is not that sequel, all titular
appearances to the contrary. It is, in more ways than one, a totally different
creature from Cloverfield;
one that is frequently jarring, brilliantly controlled, and definitely worth
going in blind.
10 Cloverfield Lane is at its core a tightly-wound three-person psychological
thriller, but debuting feature director Dan Trachtenberg doesn't simply stick
to those confines. The outside-the-box thinking begins early as Michelle (Mary
Elizabeth Winstead) tearfully breaks up with her husband and flees their home,
only to fall victim to a bone-rattling car accident that resonates throughout
the opening credits. She wakes up, bloody and chained in an ugly stone bunker,
looking like the opening victim of a Saw movie.
Moments later she's greeted by the hulking presence of Howard (John Goodman),
who tells her she can't leave his underground bunker because the world has been
destroyed outside, victim of some kind of attack. Immediately, her and
our alarm bells go off. His story sounds crazy; he's talking about nuclear
fallout and the air being unbreathable. But he's also surprisingly nice,
offering her food, crutches for her busted up leg...of course it's always
possible he's fattening her up for the kill....or keeping her around for
something far worse.
They aren't alone, either; there's
Howard's carpenter friend, Emmitt (John Gallagher, Jr.), who helped build the
bunker and corroborates the story. Between him and Howard, it's Emmitt who
comes across as more level-headed. Howard is a hard guy to pin down. Is he a
total nutcase? Or is he being honest about some kind of apocalypse event? For
all of his acts of kindness there's an outburst of pure rage. Couple his
paranoia with the natural tension of being crammed in a tight space with two
strangers and Howard could be dangerous whether he's telling the truth or not.
The best part of 10 Cloverfield Lane is
trying to decipher the answers to the questions it raises; and the trio of
screenwriters, including Oscar-nominated Whiplash writer Damien Chazelle, keep
audiences on their toes by cleverly changing the questions at a moment's
notice. A game of charades has Howard inadvertently revealing his
negative perception of Michelle and women in general, but what caused him to
feel that way? Individual moments like this that shed new light on these
characters are what keep the story fresh, something that isn't easy to do in a
single location setting. Trachtenberg shows incredible use of space and framing
in such close quarters, capturing an uneasiness caused by a combination of
claustrophobia, cheap furniture, and half-truths. But you'll laugh just
as much as you'll cower in fear as Trachtenberg plays the audience's emotions
like a fine-tuned guitar.
With only three major roles each
performance's importance is amplified, and all of the stars are at their
absolute best. The interesting thing about Goodman is how easily he shifts from
cuddly teddy bear to complete psychotic. This is the same guy who played the
lovable Dan Connor on Roseanne and The Big Lebowski's hair-trigger
Walter Sobhak. His performance here combines elements of both to effectively
disturbing degrees. Winstead has always been good at playing tough, enigmatic
women, but here she's also wildly inquisitive and intuitive. There's the subtle
suggestion of personal demons in Michelle's past, and Winstead, whose finest
role was as an alcoholic in Smashed,
brings a little bit of that addictive persona to her portrayal. 
The less said about the ending the better,
but suffice it to say the story's tight grip is loosened considerably. It's
both a blessing and a curse, as the ultimate reveal is incredibly fun even
though the answers prove less engaging than the mystery. Abrams has called 10
Cloverfield Lane a "blood relative" to its predecessor,
which doesn't mean a heck of a lot. Whether the two films are truly connected
doesn't really matter as long as we're allowed more regular visits to
Cloverfield Lane.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
