Longlegs (2024)

I started to "raise the fences" as soon as I heard the praise being heaped upon Longlegs. A lot of people were effusive about it in a way that made me think I should keep my own expectations in check. When people start comparing a crime thriller to The Silence Of The Lambs then I know that hyperbole is usually in play.

Written and directed by Osgood Perkins AKA Oz Perkins, who impressed me enormously with his first two features (February AKA The Blackcoat's Daughter and I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House), Longlegs is a dark and disturbing thriller that deserves a lot of the praise it has received, but it's unsurprisingly not quite the masterpiece that some claim, although I am happy for those who feel that way.

Maika Monroe plays Agent Lee Harker, a young woman who ends up being used by the FBI to crack a difficult and disturbing case involving a killer nick-named Longlegs (Nicolas Cage). Harker has some strange ability, call it an over-developed sense of intuition, which may help, but she also ends up being somehow connected to the case in a way that may hinder things. Agent Carter (Blair Underwood) worries about Harker, but is also impressed by her. Meanwhile, Harker's mother (Ruth, played by Alicia Witt) may need to be questioned about past events that could help our lead in the current investigation.

With an impressive mix of unsettling shot composition and equally unsettling sound and music, Longlegs is a film that aims to keep viewers on edge for the majority of the runtime. There are very few scenes that allow you to feel completely relaxed, and that's before you start to notice the many small details that either foreshadow or link to a backstory revealed on the way to a very dark and tense third act.

Much has been made of Cage's performance here. He's good, but he still gets to indulge in some familiar Cage-isms. This isn't a complete transformation, although the make up and his changed voice do a lot to keep him feeling much more like Longlegs than "CAGE does Longlegs". Monroe is finally in another film that is at least worthy of her talent and presence, and she does a very good job of being awkward and struggling in every moment. Underwood is very good, often playing his part in a very obvious way until the one or two moments that allow him to break out from the stereotype, but the real standouts, for me anyway, are Kiernan Shipka and Alicia Witt, both delivering some of their very best work. Shipka gets to be more serious and dark than usual (although I've only seen some of her movie work, maybe she gets to be serious and dark in the Sabrina show . . . but I'll always be thinking of Melissa Joan Hart), and Witt is the person who delivers a performance that is truly transformative. I don't mean this to sound dismissive or insulting, but Witt has been doing work over the past few years that I never expected after she seemed to enjoy spending so much time in the lucrative Christmas TV movie market. Then again, looking through Witt's filmography makes it clear that she hasn't stopped working in a variety of projects over the past few decades, but it's the Christmas TV movies that get the guaranteed airtime and marketing.

While I would still be hesitant to immediately place it in a conversation with the absolute greats in this sub-genre (one from Demme, two from Fincher, plus one or two others), Longlegs is a meticulous and quite brilliant journey into darkness that may well leave even the hardiest of viewers slightly rattled by the time the end credits start to scroll. Perkins shows that he has been on an upward trajectory ever since his feature debut, becoming more confident and skilled with each outing, and I cannot wait to see what he does next. I also cannot wait to rewatch this, scouring every inch of the frame for the details that offer astonishing verisimilitude and indicators of how everything is due to play out.

8/10

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