Alone a movie that taps into a very rational fear that most drivers have experienced, even if just briefly - “Is that car following me?” I’ve had several instances where I was nearly convinced that I was being tailed, only for the car to eventually split off in another direction. In Alone, recently widowed Jessica is moving to a new state, and finds herself subjected to the antics of a cold-blooded killer.
I love a good thriller, and Alone definitely hits a lot of those beats that makes the hairs on your arm stand up. That said, I can’t help but take issue with our setup/inciting incident(s). If somebody deliberately tries to run you off the road, maybe don’t sit there and have a conversation with them about it the next day? And then, when you “coincidentally” run into that same person like 3 more times within a 24 hour period you should be alarmed! Literally every red flag is being raised! Last thing, don’t stop at a rest stop in the late hours of the night to chill and smoke a cig when you believe that you’re being stalked. I really couldn’t help but wonder what the hell Jessica was thinking. I’m a grown ass man and I promise you I wouldn’t stop driving until my tank ran out of gas if I had reason to believe somebody was stalking/pursuing me.
Anyway, Jessica gets caught and the dude locks her in the basement of some log cabin in the middle of a forest. Thanks to a 200 IQ play on Jessica’s behalf, she’s able to knock the skeleton key out of the door and pull it through with her jacket. After hiding in the man’s closet waiting for the coast to be clear, Jessica makes a run for it, and we’ve got ourselves a chase.
This is where the movie lost a bit of Steam for me. As Jessica’s dashing through the forest, we get the cliche of cliches when she trips and falls, because of course she does. Then, she jumps into a river with a powerful current, which very much should have drowned her. She then finds a hunter, who she convinces to help her. The man finds them, and tries to convince the hunter that Jessica is her sister, and that she’s suffering from a mental condition. I really liked this scene, as it amped the tension up to an 11.
In their final encounter, we see Jessica get the man's phone and call his wife and daughter, telling them everything that he had done. This was an incredibly satisfying moment, because we knew that even if he killed Jessica, he was going to lose everything he cherished.
I’m not going to say Alone is a “great” thriller. It’s definitely one of those movies that feels sloppier and sloppier the more you try to think and apply real-world logic to it, but if you’re down to suspend your disbelief a little bit and have a drink or two, it’s a decent ride.
