Hypnotic
A thrilling psychological thriller is muddied by generic waters in a lightweight Netflix programmer.
Shrink wrapped: Kate Siegel and Jason O’Mara
Not far beneath the tinsel and tropes of Suzanne Coote and Matt Angel's psychological thriller lies a terrifying film waiting to rip itself free. From The Manchurian Candidate to Get Out, mind control has proved a staple diet for the cinema, but has been little exploited of late. Unfortunately, there are only two really convincing characters in Hypnotic, whose naturalism jars with the Ken and Barbie demeanour of the rest of the cast. They are the brusque, cynical detective played by Dulé Hill (star and co-producer of TV’s Psyche) and the police therapist portrayed by Tanja Dixon-Warren.
The star is Angelina Jolie lookalike Kate Siegel who plays the drop-dead gorgeous Jenn Tompson. Jenn is having mental problems, because she’s always holding a Cabernet wine glass, or accompanying bottle, and turns up at a party with a dead plant in her hands. She is recovering from the stillbirth of her child and has cast off her long-time partner Brian (Michael B. Jordan lookalike Jaime M. Callica) who happens to suffer from a fatal sesame allergy. This is the sort of film where everybody has a mental or physical disability (Jenn’s best friend is arachnophobic), which leaves the floor clear for the dashing and smarmy psychotherapist Dr Collin Meade (Jason O’Mara). He’s so handsome he could pass for a latter-day Rock Hudson. It doesn’t say much for a film in which everybody looks like somebody else, but after the hokey prologue things do pick up. Jenn, a “killer software engineer” is in-between jobs and her arachnophobic bestie suggests that she sees the good Dr Meade to sort herself out. The latter suggests a course of hypnotherapy, mollifying Jenn’s worst fears by saying, “only you can control your subconscious,” the slick bastard.
Set in Portland, Oregon, the film looks like it could be set anywhere (it was shot in Vancouver) and the locations are as identikit as the characters. But the thrust of the premise and intriguing talk of “post-hypnotic suggestion” and “counter-triggers” keeps one gripped, sort of. “In the wrong hands, hypnosis can be dangerous,” warns the comforting Dr Stella Graham (Dixon-Warren) and immediately thoughts of Get Out’s Catherine Keener and her ruddy teaspoon come rushing to the surface. The mentalist Derren Brown has shown on primetime television how easy it is to manipulate the human mind and there’s a great film to be made from the subject. This isn’t it, but it should slip down nicely with a glass of Cabernet on a Saturday night.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Kate Siegel, Jason O’Mara, Dulé Hill, Lucie Guest, Jaime M. Callica, Tanja Dixon-Warren, Luc Roderique, Devyn Dalton, Stephanie Cudmore.
Dir Susanne Coote and Matt Angel, Pro Michael J. Luisi, Screenplay Richard D’Ovidio, Ph John S. Bartley, Pro Des Roger Fires, Ed Brian Ufberg, Music Nathan Matthew David, Costumes Ariana Preece, Sound Don Mann.
The Long Game-Netflix.
89 mins. USA. 2021. Rel: 27 October 2021. Cert. 15.
