I am convinced that director Maxime Giroux, working in an English language film for the first time, has made the film he wanted to make with the gritty indie In Cold Light.
I am also convinced that at some point In Cold Light will find the audience it deserves.
In Cold Light, at first glance, seems to be just another formulaic crime thriller. Set over the course of 24 hours, In Cold Light is a crime thriller for sure, however, it's a crime thriller more concerned with its people than with its crimes. Giroux absolutely doesn't hold back from the violence, it's seemingly ingrained in the soul of Maika Monroe's Ava, a young woman who seems shut out anything resembling connection from the moment we lay eyes on her.
As we meet Ava, she's trying to escape from a drug house where she and her twin brother, Tom (Jesse Irving), are selling their wares. After spending a couple of years in prison, Ava heads back home to re-establish herself. Things have changed. When Tom is killed while the two are on the way to a meeting, Ava ends up framed for the murder. Trying to both get clear and get revenge, Ava aims to get out from those who now want her dead. But, the choices we make have consequences and sometimes those consequences never go away.
In Cold Light is written by Patrick Whistler (Dreamland), though it's perhaps the film's silences that most define it. My guess is that an awful lot of the folks complaining about the film's lack of narrative are used to being spoon-fed their cinematic adventures. In Cold Light doesn't spoon-feed. Whistler and Giroux trust moviegoers, a refreshing approach, to get what's going on here and they absolutely refuse pour in expository dialogue to babysit us along the way.
It was in the hours after In Cold Light that I realized how much the film impacted me and how much I was shook by the silences and by Ava's look over and over and over again. Monroe is pretty mind-blowing as Ava, a young woman whose entire being is completely and utterly insulated. She's been hurt. And she's been hurt again. And she's immersed herself so much into this world of drugs and violence that she seems now to be unable to let anyone in. Tom's murder has amplified this disconnection, her sole link to anything resembling humanity now gone.
The choice to cast Oscar-winning actor Troy Kotsur, who is deaf, as Ava's father was a brilliant one that first gave us an actor capable of tremendous depth and secondly amplified Ava's sense of disconnection and her repressed communication. Kotsur is absolutely tremendous here. Giroux has noted the character in the original script wasn't deaf, however, this was just absolutely brilliant casting and a tremendous effort from Kotsur.
It's the evolution of Ava that truly turns In Cold Light into something special whether finally starting to communicate with her father or fumbling toward something resembling caregiving with the young infant her brother has left behind while finding a safe place where the child won't be harmed by her own actions. There two moments where I cried in In Cold Light, both scenes involving Ava's physicality and facial expressions with this young child. It was symbolic of a glimmer, a tiny little glimmer, of humanity and a connection that helped to explain why we were rooting for Ava and why, despite everything, she is the film's protagonist.
Sara Mishara's lensing for the film is visually impressive. Shot on film, In Cold Light establishes itself so precisely and with such stunning atmosphere that I gasped on more than one occasion. One early scene in which Ava opens a package that has clearly been setting for quite some time and dust arises just completely wowed me.
In Cold light surprised me. Even a late film appearance by Oscar-winner Helen Hunt was so much more impactful than it had any right to be. Hunt took a few minutes of screen time and played it like her life depended on it. Much more impressive than you're expecting it to be, In Cold Light gives us characters who matter and surprisingly satisfying explorations of grief amidst the culture of violence in which they all live.
In Cold Light is a sublime crime thriller for those who enjoy the more experimental, stylish, and character-driven side of the thriller genre.
Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic
