Brian Netto and Adam Schindler’s “Don’t Move” is an insipid rendition of the serial killer thriller. It has the slimmest plot and relies on anticipation and dread. But where’s the tension? Instead, there’s contrived character development, customary confessions doled out to amp up the emotional factor and construct backstory for furnishing motivations. It’s not even remotely intriguing on any count, bordering on tedium and never really earning its runtime of ninety minutes. There’s too much dullness on display, a tired reiteration of all the cliches we come to expect in narratives such as this.
The screenplay throws in a God complex to the sadistic killer, which is hardly persuasive. You’re left wondering at the listlessness of the situation, despite several supposedly charged moments when it feels the kidnapped woman might score a chance at rescue. Situations like these in a thriller demand a certain tautness, a leanness of orchestration. This doesn’t come through. T.J. Cimfel and David White’s screenplay is too lazy and content to wade about in generic plot turns and unconvincing key narrative moments. Hence, the thriller crashes barely after it sets up.
Don’t Move (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
Iris (Kelsey Asbille) is grappling with the loss of her son, Mateo. It’s not established, though, how long it has been since her son passed. She is barely scraping her way through life. The film opens with her, all hollowed out in grief, going to a mountain top where she plans to jump off a cliff and end her life. She doesn’t know how to move forward with her life after her son’s untimely passing. There’s also a load of guilt that eats away at her, something that becomes amply clear once she is compelled to have a conversation with a stranger, Richard (Finn Wittrock) who suddenly pops up on the spot.
Initially, she is not at all interested in hearing him out. He calmly reasons with her and shares his tragic past with her. Richard has also been through enormous personal loss. He lost his partner, Chloe, in a car accident. They were having a fight which is when the car swerved disastrously. He went into bed rest for two months, recovered from the loss, and mulled on his personal demons. In sharing tragedy, he establishes a connection with her. This was the spot where her son wandered and fell off the cliff. She and her husband have drifted since the shattering loss. Her life has turned emotionally rudderless. She blames herself for an oversight, which caused the death of her son.
Richard convinces Iris to give her life another chance. But the situation turns quickly into diabolical ends. She finds herself all bound up in the backseat of his car. He tells her he has administered her some kind of poison that will incapacitate her soon. All her motor functions and speech abilities will be taken away. Somehow she attacks him, and the car swerves and hits a tree.
What happens to the man in the woods?
She runs through the woods and collapses after a while. An old man, William, takes her in. They communicate on a blinking basis. Soon, however, Richard also shows up at his house, explaining he has been looking for his wife. Richard cooks up a moving story of how he is trying to save his wife from being committed to a mental institution. He says she is deeply unstable and therefore he is desperately searching for her. He almost gets the sympathy of William, who has his own sad story of his wife, when his deception gets across to him. His phone starts buzzing whereas he had told William he lost it. This arouses the latter’s suspicions, who was about to give away Iris.
A scuffle ensues between the two. Richard, or Andrew which is another name flagged, kills the old man. An alert to the emergency services was issued by William before he got killed. Richard sets fire to the cabin, finds Iris hiding, and takes her away. There are multiple circumstances when Iris seemingly has a close run-in with escape and being saved. She also discovers that Richard has a perfectly normal family life with a wife and daughter.
He has these weekend getaways at his cabin as a way of coping with the loss of his dead partner. His wife understands it and gives him space, unaware that this is what he is up to on these getaways. Richard also kills a cop who is about to nab the whole thing. He drew a God complex when he survived the crash that killed Chloe. He gets a kick from ending lives, funneling a superiority of being and Godlike agency.
Don’t Move (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
Can Iris’s Ordeal with Richard Lead to Her Redemption and Renewal?
Richard likes drawing out time with his victims. It gives him a sense of power. That’s why he keeps Iris alive, punishing her while she is about to end her life. It lends him control and ownership. Iris feels helpless but the effects of the paralytic agent are wearing off. Her motor functions and speech ability are returning. It also gives sudden spurts of energy.
In the climax, Richard takes Iris out on a boat. Her willpower to resume and experience life has also returned vigorously. This is how Richard affects her. For once, she pleads with him to take out a toy boat of Mateo that she always carries in her pocket and give it to her. Just as he bows down, she stabs him. He violently tosses around in the boat. She grabs hold of his gun and shoots her. He falls overboard. The boat capsizes.
Gathering all her persistence and vigor, she makes it out of the lake and ashore. He also washes ashore. She thanks him and leaves. Richard has put her through hell but the experience gives her clarity on life, the delineations of accident and death, and the fact that she mustn’t blame herself for the loss of her son. She walks away with a renewed commitment to life.
