A Good Woman Is Hard To Find (2019)

Director Abner Pastoll didn't really impress me as much as he seemed to impress others with his 2015 feature, Road Games. It was a film with some decent moments, but dragged down by predictability and implausibility. It's hard to think that this tense thriller is directed by the same person who made that movie. A Good Woman Is Hard To Find is a near-perfect piece of work, and I HIGHLY recommend you check it out as soon as you can.

Sarah Bolger stars as Sarah, a young widow who is still trying to figure out just who killed her husband. Other people have their theories, and the police seem to have much more on their plate to deal with. It looks like she may never get any answers, although that changes when a young crook named Tito (Andrew Simpson) bursts into her home. He has stolen some drugs from some very bad men, and wants somewhere to hide out. Seeing Sarah, and her two young children, Tito realises it could be the perfect place to stash his goods, and he'll give her a cut of the money. But Sarah wants nothing to do with the situation. Leo Miller (played by Edward Hogg) is the local crime boss who sends his henchmen out to retrieve the drugs they lost, and it turns out that he MIGHT have something to do with the death of Sarah's husband.

Everyone is working at the top of their game here, and I suspect that they're responding positively to the script, by Ronan Blaney, and the effort made by Pastoll to craft something excruciatingly tense around a fantastic lead character. Sarah is shown, from the very start, to be someone who is trying her best under extremely difficult circumstances, and there's a strength visible there, even in her weakest and most fragile moments. If she seems too timid or passive, it's only to protect her children, or to be on her best behaviour in front of them.

Bolger is so good in the main role that I cannot find enough superlatives to throw around here. She's been working hard for many years now, and in a fair world this would be the role to take her career to some higher level. This isn't a fair world though, so I can only hope that the right people see her performance here, and are suitably blown away. Simpson does very well in his role, a lot better here in his sorta-natural habitat than he was in Road Games. The only real weak link is Hogg, who plays his villain in a way that feels like he wants to be Sean Harris, and making you wish someone had just thought of hiring Sean Harris. I did quite enjoy his turn here, but I seem to be very much in the minority, and I can see why.

Pastoll and Blaney seem to complement one another perfectly, leading to a film that maintains an entertainment factor even as it wanders from one almost-unbearably tense moment to the next, and I would definitely watch another collaboration between the two of them to see if they can succeed again. And if they once again give Bolger the material to dazzle in a lead role, all the better.

9/10

Shudder Saturday: Road Games (2016)

There's a moment in Road Games, a thriller from writer-director Abner Pastoll, in which everything that could have been tense and plausible is brought crashing down. It's a moment that has characters obstinately not blurting out information that could change everything, but the script obviously cannot allow that to happen, so it doesn't. And that's a great shame, because Road Games has a decent run up until then.

The premise is simple. Jack (Andrew Simpson) is hitch-hiking in France, trying to get to Calais, which is his route back home to England. He meets Veronique (Joséphine de La Baume), the two decide to continue on together, and eventually they are picked up by Grizard (Frédéric Pierrot) and taken to his home (where his wife, Barbara Crampton, also resides). Things become a bit tense and strange, and we shouldn't forget the fact that a killer has been roaming the countryside.

This is only the second feature from Pastoll, who has also helmed a fair number of shorts, and it's clear that he has a level of competency undermined by what seems to be either a slight lack of imagination or an unwarranted confidence in his main story beats (many of which are either far too familiar to fans of thriller movies, slightly fumbled in the execution, or often both). Seeing one or two twists coming isn't always a mark against a movie, but it is when plotting starts to feel as if things have been twisted and manipulated ONLY to create a third act that doesn't offer anything more than those twists.

The varying quality of the acting doesn't help. Most of the cast do okay (Pierrot and Crampton do well, despite being hampered by the required level of oddness given to their characters) but De La Baume and Simpson let the side down, with the latter particularly weak in some scenes that need an actor capable of conveying a good mix of fear, bewilderment, and determination. I haven't seen him in anything else, that I can think of, and I wouldn't rush to watch any other movies that have him in a lead role. Féodor Atkine is the only other main actor, and he does just fine.

As ever, I have tried to write this review without spoiling anything. It's disappointing that the same care wasn't taken by Pastoll. Road Games has enough to make it an okay watch, but that's an opinion that comes from me, a notoriously kind and forgiving film fan (most days). Others may find it all a bit too tedious, and perhaps slightly drawn out. Even at a runtime of just 95 minutes, some sharper editing could have improved things.

This is a road that we've all been down before, and this journey doesn't lead to anywhere all that exciting.

5/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.
Or you can click on either of those links and then buy whatever you like, that still works for me.