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| Images courtesy Amazon Studios |
What's been marketed as a science fiction road trip movie is quite a bit more than that. The film is a deep dig into the psyche of a war veteran that's convinced that the world is under attack by alien microorganisms that are attempting to infect the human race and take over the population. The beginning feels like a modern update of Invasion of the Body Snatchers but ends up as a family drama with amazing performances all around.
The resulting two hours turns numerous genres on their side as it interweaves a story about a man's love for his children with a long form look at the mental health care crisis in the U.S.. Ahmed, in typical chameleon fashion, slips into character with top tier skill and never looks back. He's backed by two child actors, Lucian-River Chauhan and Aditya Geddada, both of which act well beyond their years with convincing performances that really draw the audience in to their plight.
Beast director Michael Pearce goes full tilt with his critical analysis of our current crises and views on the pandemic as his story about a former special ops marine trades in everyday sci-fi plot points for a targeted look that tears down tropes and bends movie standards to his own rules. Where some might be looking for another film like Midnight Special, this is not it. Encounter starts off one way and ends another as Octavia Spencer shows up and assists in moving the story in a totally different direction. Despite some misleading marketing tactics, this is actually one of the better dramatic efforts of 2021 as it spans numerous locales, digging deeper and harder into its underlying message as it moves along.
At the core of Encounter is a great story of dedication, love and fatherhood in an era where so many of us are struggling against the odds. Set against an alien-like dusted terrain, Pearce and his cast rally behind a story that shows us how forced adulthood in the face of adversity has become a normal everyday event in our children's culture and how our offspring are expected to grow up in a post pandemic world. Much like this year's In the Earth, the film doesn't tackle the subject head on but instead weaves those themes in varying angles that eventually come to a head.
Encounter is a challenging movie that begs for your attention at all times. Michael Pearce understands how to make his audience care about his onscreen characters, which in itself is a great accomplishment for a sophomore feature length effort. There's quite a bit of magic just underneath the surface with this one. And it deserves your undivided attention.
-CG
