A film about the state of American political discourse? Haha, must be a horror movie, am I right? Oh, I see, it is actually a horror movie.
Around twenty minutes into The Hunt, I was pretty sure I would end up hating it. I suppose the fact that I did not end up hating it is a bit of a triumph for the filmmakers, regardless of whether I actually walked away enjoying my experience with the film or not. I would go so far as to say they are angling for some hate, as this project seems designed with provocation in mind. The film imagines a universe where the worst assumptions that conservatives make about liberals are true, and vice versa, then puts the two parties in direct martial conflict via a scenario in which the liberal elite kidnap their hated counterparts and hunt them in an elaborately staged pantomime of a widely accepted conspiracy theory. It is unclear if the filmmakers take the least charitable view of both sides in order to raise their respective ire or to signal that this is farcical camp that isn’t to be taken seriously, but I imagine anyone who sits too far to one side of the aisle will infer that the filmmakers true loyalties lie with the other side, and the rest of us that have more moderate views will be inclined to see the characters as broadly drawn caricatures that strategically avoid the film taking a side. In some ways, it is a bit infuriating that there doesn’t seem to be much of a point of view, but it would probably be much worse if the movie tipped its hand towards one ideology or the other.
The film’s saving grace is lead protagonist, Betty Gilpin. I know her from G.L.O.W., where she commands the screen with a simultaneously powerful and vulnerable performance. There is no material like that for her to work with here, but she does cut a strong figure as a bad-ass veteran of the Afghan War. She is one of the hunted, but immediately set apart from her fellow prey by the fact that she shows a hint of nuance and compassion. Throughout the course of the film, she is put in precarious situations and forced to make brash, violent decisions that always turn out to be on point. We love a capable final girl, of course, and Gilpin stands out even moreso due to the fact that every other character is written as a political cartoon. The movie’s best, or at least best written, scene involves a Gilpin monologue where she recounts the story of the tortoise and the hare, albeit with a grisly ending that flips the moral of the story on its head. It feels like it is meant to be the mission statement of the film, and there is a clunky callback to it in the final moments, except that the parable seems like the metaphor for a slightly different story in which the power structure pits the two sides against each other in order to distract the masses from doing things that might threaten said power structure. Imagine the Trumps and the Clintons and the Musks and the Zuckerbergs all laughing and toasting together behind closed doors at what easily manipulated marks we all are. That would have made for an interesting, and horrifying, premise, but The Hunt seems content to just revel in the awfulness of the straw men and women they have concocted.
I have a hard time recommending The Hunt, despite some good performances and a fast-moving plot that never drags. It isn’t scary at all, but so few movies I review actually are, so that’s hardly a disqualifier. I think what holds me back from liking the film is that it feels at once way too broad, but also not broad enough to be truly provocative. The way things play out online already magnifies the most extreme, most absurd of the political spectrum, with each side spinning up their own straw men and amplifying all the articles and tweets and memes that support the idea that those straw men are real. Wading through that online hall of funhouse mirrors every day leaves you pretty numb to the type of satire that this movie is peddling. I think that’s why I found myself anchoring on Gilpin’s strong performance, but that just isn’t enough to sustain the whole endeavor. I prefer my horror movie political commentary far more legible and pointed.
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