The ID is a very constrained thriller
flick about an older woman bound to her home, taking care of her emotionally
abusive father. The film has seen some success in the indie film festival
circuit and it’s easy to see why. It’s somewhat obvious the production is
working off of a small budget, but the money is well managed. In some areas,
it feels like a theater ready feature, but the cracks are there. We’re going to
look at just how well it holds up overall, spoiler free as always.
It was great
to see how nice and crisp the image quality was in this, and I think it helps
the picture overall. Our leading lady, Meredith’s, wrinkles well on display and
constantly clashing with the décor of her room that hasn’t seemed to change
since high school. As far as the set design goes, they were obviously careful
to make sure everything in the home was a late 80’s relic. It drives home the
isolationist nature of our two main characters, Meredith completely stuck. Now
while I did enjoy the set design quite a bit, one thing I couldn’t bring myself
to fully enjoy was the cinematography. The close-up shots were quite good at
establishing that feeling of claustrophobia, but they’re used so often they
lose their effect rather quick. The recycled hallucinatory
sequences drag on a tad too long, with a few too many false scares. It’s sad to
see good ideas get overused.
As far as
the characters go, I found the leads to be superbly effective at just what they
needed to. Amanda Wyss’ portrayal of Meredith is honestly just well-acted; she
does such a wonderful job showing this woman at her mental breaking point.
Patrick Peduto does more than enough to give a reason for that break. He’s the
perfect old crotchety man, an old asshole who often hides behind scripture to
belittle his daughter, and keep her trapped in his sad world. The constant
yelling and verbal assault Meredith endures makes her feel very sympathetic.
The other actors are somewhat middling, and it’s a great service to the movie
that they take a smaller portion of the run time.
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| Do you want to pet my hair? |
The
characters do such a wonderful job building up tense atmosphere between the
two, they only seem to get more intense throughout, but the payoff for all this
seems to just create more problems. With about a good half of the movie left,
the pacing begins to suffer and it pushed me towards just wanting it to end. It
comes to an overall conclusion that just leaves you kind of dry. I wish it had
a little more oomph to it at the end of the day. I would’ve loved to have seen
it get just a bit more extreme in some way. It just needs a little extra to
make it truly special, but it’s something worth a late-night view.
Show half your self and share this review.
-Vanyel Harkema