Stars:
*** 1/2
Rating: R for violence, language and
excessive abuse
Run
Time: 1 hour, 47 minutes
Edgy auteur
Michael Haneke (“The Piano Teacher”) uses the head fake to extreme advantage in
this shocking, uncompromising thriller that’s a shot-by-shot remake of his own
1997 German-language original.
Haneke taps
into the notion of home invasion as everyone’s worst nightmare, the very
essence of its latent reality making for horrific and disconcerting viewing.
As Ann
(Naomi Watts) and George (Tim Roth) and son arrive at their swanky lakeside
digs its business as usual; unpack the bags, launch the boat and thaw out some
steaks for a lazy summer barbecue.
Even when
the neighbors pop in with a pair of handsome houseguests all seems status quo.
Or does it? The boys are clad in cool tennis whites with the curious addition
of pristine white gloves. Good manners dictate they go unmentioned.
While Paul
(Michael Pitt) busies himself with outdoor pursuits Peter (Brady Corbet) makes
camp in the kitchen with Ann, insisting the neighbors need some eggs for their
morning omelet.
There’s
nothing overtly amiss but the tone is distinctly off; in Peter’s provoking
persistence, his flat, impassive gaze and long, lingering close-ups on cold
empty spaces.
Slowly, painstakingly,
it all goes to hell; the visitors’ carefully mannered conduct imploding into malignant
domestic abuse – pregnant pauses and loaded silences punctuated by displays of
sadistic brutality and tension without resolution.
And that
tension is too close to home. Haneke utilizes a sporadically raucous score to
uneasy effect and raises the fear-factor with what you don’t see, forcing an overactive
imagination to do the dirty work for you.
It’s a
thriller of exceedingly repellent thrills; a visceral and disturbing homage to
decades of what is commonly referred to as “theatre of cruelty”. The anger is
palpable – how could they? Why would they?
Climax is
an agonizing leap of ruthlessness; infuriating, outrageous and unbearably provocative.
“Games” rests so heavily on tenterhooks of guilt that an apology is in order
for admiring it; so profoundly unsettling, so thoroughly wrong that it nearly feels
right.