The Apology (2022)

There's virtually no information about this on its Wikipedia page, but between the fact this came out in 2022, the isolated setting, and the cast almost entirely consisting of three characters, it seems like a safe bet this was produced and filmed during the Covid lockdowns. It was ultimately released by Shudder, where it received a tepid response from viewers and critics. I can't help but suspect some of that reaction may have been due to exhaustion with minimalist productions at the time - for a few years there, it felt like everything was made with a couple actors and a skeleton crew to comply with restrictions on crowds. In addition, horror fans tend to react poorly to non-horror movies marketed in that genre, and The Apology is ultimately more a psychological thriller.

That's my guess for why this didn't get a better response at the time, because I thought this was quite good as a suspenseful character drama. Just be warned it goes to some dark places... though it kind of has to given the premise.

Before we get to that, this seems like a good time for a *SPOILER ALERT*, since it's the kind of movie you should see without knowing too much (just be warned there are extended discussions about the abuse of and murder of a child).

The movie's protagonist is Darlene (Anna Gunn), an aging woman who never gave up searching for her daughter, who went missing two decades earlier. On Christmas Eve, her ex-brother-in-law (who she had a brief affair with prior to her daughter's disappearance), Jack (Linus Roache), shows up at her door. Soon, he forces a conversation about the past hinging on a confession: twenty years earlier, he raped and murdered Darlene's daughter (at first he describes the encounter as consensual, but over the course of the movie Darlene gets him to admit the truth).

Darlene quickly realizes she's locked in her own house without access to a working phone. In addition, Jack brought a gun, which he insists is only for his protection (though naturally things escalate). He insists he's been racked with guilt for the past twenty years, and claims that he's searching for a reasonable resolution.

The third character who has more than a bit part is Gretchen (Janeane Garofalo), Darlene's neighbor, who makes a brief appearance early on then arrives to support Darlene in the third act, by which point there have been multiple reversals in terms of who's in control.

The movie is somewhat surprising in its decision to not try and be surprising: there are no real twists in the last act or big revelations meant to catch us off guard. Jack isn't lying to protect anyone, nor is Darlene's daughter somehow magically still alive in spite of Jack's confession. Once we understand that, the question shifts to what Jack is trying to accomplish and - far more importantly - what outcome Darlene desires.

In terms of Jack, the movie quickly demonstrates he's mainly trying to control the situation. Despite what he's done and what he's put Darlene through, he arrogantly believes he has some kind of intellectual or even moral right to decide how the story ends. Roache plays all of this sincerely: the character believes he's a good person who made a mistake, and further that it's incumbent on Darlene to understand that mistake.

He's not, however, naive enough to expect her to forgive him. In fact, he doesn't really want her to. All of this is ultimately an elaborate suicide attempt on his part: he wants her to kill him. He's even willing to kill her if she refuses to go along with this, because the one thing he doesn't want is to be arrested and held accountable by the legal system, where he would have no control over his fate.

So the question then becomes what Darlene will do when she has him restrained, she's holding the gun, and she has his full confession and apology. Gunn plays the character's objective close to the vest, implying she doesn't always know herself. Likewise, writer/director Alison Star Locke constructs this in such a way it could easily have resolved as a standard revenge flick.

But it doesn't. With support from Gretchen, Darlene refuses to kill Jack, despite promising to do so, pointing out that she doesn't own him anything. The movie closes with the two women comforting each other while awaiting the police.

And... okay, sidenote. Characters like Gretchen always die in movies like this. It's practically an unspoken rule: most of the time they're written in to ensure there's someone the antagonist can brutally kill to up the stakes and prove how evil they are. I was shocked when the movie subverted this and revealed she was here in a very different context. Shocked and delighted (and not just because - like everyone of my generation - I adore Garofalo).

I imagine fans of horror watching this on Shudder were less pleased. This is, after all, a movie where not a single character dies over the course of the film (though death of course overshadows the narrative). There's no shocking gore, either, though there are a couple violent sequences. The movie saves its more disturbing ideas for the dialogue, which is plenty disturbing on its own.

It echoes some ideas from the movie, Promising Young Woman, which came out a few years earlier, and similarly served as a sort of feminist deconstruction of revenge fantasies centered on predators disguised as "nice guys." This certainly isn't in the same league as Promising Young Woman, but considering the budget and scale, I still found it darkly fascinating.

The dialogue has a sort of theatrical quality to it, but it feels appropriate given the movie's tone and style. This script could have been adapted into a stage play with little to no alteration. I sometimes have trouble connecting with movies structured this way, but this feels like Locke had a vision and - in my opinion - pulls it off.

In terms of the holidays, the movie is primarily using them as a symbol of endings and beginnings. Darlene's daughter disappeared around Christmas, trapping her mother in a sort of purgatory for twenty years as she tried to unravel what occurred. While the answer she receives certainly isn't the one she'd hoped for, the truth does finally give her the opportunity to find a sort of peace. In this sense, the end of a year marks a new beginning; the transition into a period where healing might be possible.

This one probably isn't a good pick for anyone looking for horror or, conversely, for those unable to stomach the subject matter. But as long as you don't fall in either of those buckets, I'd recommend giving this a shot. It's much better than its reputation would suggest.