Held (2020)

As long as we recognize Lucas is washed up and most TV sucks, we'll all get along fine.
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Leisher
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Held (2020)

Post by Leisher »

Currently on Hulu.

Jill Awbrey wrote and stars in this "thriller" about a married couple who go to a remote getaway for their anniversary. Unfortunately for them, someone else is there that knows their secrets, but plans to improve their marriage whether they like it or not.

I really respect Jill Awbrey for the effort. She shot her shot. She wrote a film and then put herself in it.

However, my praise ends there. The movie is filmed well, but her performance is not that impressive. Where she really lost me though was the story. I was fine with the opening scene of her in the Uber because I know that shit is real. We actually have a thread discussing how creepy guys can get. Thus, I was fine with overlooking how unrealistic the dialogue was in that scene. Not that a guy wouldn't say those things, but it just had no realistic conversational flow to it at all.

Listen, from this point on, I'm going into spoiler territory. Should you see this film? No. That's a shame too because it could have been something good.

Anyway here is Ms. Awbrey's real problem: She could have done something original, but instead leaned into the cliche. "Men are bad and women are heroes." She actually had the women be the cheater, yet still made the husband the bad guy. I mean, for fuck's sake. She even gave the guy an easy layup of an out at the end, yet instead of letting him show some brains and heart, she had to make him go full evil. Just terrible and predictable.

First of all, your movie has five actors. It's extremely difficult to hide your intentions behind 5 actors.

Secondly, I immediately suspected the husband when he ran off to see what was going on. Him having a bleeding head wound just confirmed my suspicions. Ms. Awbrey might want to look into head wounds and understand that they aren't something that just gets ignored or goes away instantly.

Third, the twist was garbage and could be seen from the beginning as I have pointed out. To make it worse, you had it get revealed in the dumbest way possible. It was just so lazy, and the big reveal was hilariously cartoonish.

The pitch for this film had to be "What if we mixed The Stepford Wives with Get Out".
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