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| Images courtesy of Epic Films |
This is a quietly horrific tale of a woman neglected and taken for granted.
Its tightly written plot communicates so much of its backstory through anecdotes, which leaves the jaw-dropping moments of horror to take center stage. This is a domestic horror film that disturbs because of how realistically it depicts a person’s descent into mental illness.
Holly (Azura Skye) is a mother of two teenage boys, a high school English teacher, and wife to a supermarket manager. She tries to fix things and keep people happy in all of these roles, though each role sees her overlooked and taken advantage of. Complicating things is her inability to sleep at night, which causes partial memory loss. She seems to only remember parts of a night drive which led her to angrily swerve a car with two young kids off the road in the middle of the night.
Skye is phenomenal as a woman drained of attention and hope, going through the motions like an automaton. One subplot that seems to give her some energy is dealing with a mouse in her house by setting out traps and poisoned peanut butter on crackers. Another is attempting to be seen by her inattentive and absent husband. Her visits to his grocery story are met with knowing stares by the femaleemployees.
Another employee who seems to know what goes on at the store is one of Holly’s students, Paul. His glances at her, though, are of admiration, which creates a very uncomfortable plot point halfway into the film. ‘I see you. And I know that you’re too good for him,’ Paul says, referring to Holly’s husband.
Holly’s desperation to be seen stems from and lead to some very cringe-y and uncomfortable sex scenes that border on being rape-y. All the domestic frustrations and horrors escalate into a climax that, though it may be somewhat predictable, is still jaw dropping and Shakespearean.
The Swerve is streaming on Tubi.
—EB