Safe Return Doubtful

USA drama 2024

I was foolish enough to say to a friend on Friday that it had been a pretty average year for films so far. The following two nights I watched two films that are the best I’ve seen so far this year, and turn that statement on its head. 

In fact, in that conversation with a friend, they said how they enjoyed a good drama, without any violence or action scenes, and this is just such a thing. 

I associate films about hiking trips with horror, as in The Ritual, Loop Track, and the wonderful Swedish film, Koko-Di, Koko-Da, and for the first half hour needed to remind myself that nothing was going to to jump out to surprise the hikers on this circular weekend trail in the Catskills. 

A father, his best friend, intricately plan a three day circuit, but at the last moment his son drops out, and his seventeen year old daughter, Sam, takes his place. It’s a slow-paced, as with the hike itself, study of the interactions between the three. The two middle-aged men are stressed by the day to day life of business men in New York City, but determined to present a macho and often chauvinistic attitude towards campcraft. The film is so watchable because of the performance of Lily Colias as Sam, also 17 when the film was made. The men are set up to fall down, and as they do so, Sam shows a wisdom far beyond her years. 

This is also a triumph for its director, India Donaldson, who manages the balance between the interactions of the cast and the magnificent location of the trail. In refusing to adhere to the norm of plot and of confrontational encounters, she shows a different way of doing things that make her one to watch for sure. 

IMDb rating 6.6 / 10, my rating 8 / 10