Wrecked [Blu-Ray]

Michael Greenspan

BY Robert BellPublished Oct 3, 2011

The appeal of Montreal filmmaker Michael Greenspan's feature directorial debut, Wrecked, has much to do with ones appreciation for the nasutus Adrien Brody and his depiction of a completely nondescript and undefined character with amnesia. It's sort of a make or break thing, since he's the only character in the movie, aside from a dog, a cougar and Canada's latest incarnation of the ubiquitous Molly Parker — Caroline Dhavernas — as his mysterious conscience. Incidental villains and talking heads pop up in potentially delusional visions and flashbacks, but as far as character identification goes, it's Brody or nothing. He spends the first half-hour trapped in a crashed car, lodged in between the door and the dashboard in the passenger seat, bruised and broken, desperately drinking rainwater from an ashtray and reaching across the car for the sole morsel of visible food: a dirty mint. Eventually, he starts to see wild animals and the occasional disappearing person, suggesting a distorted reality construct obfuscated by his misleading and gradual memory regain involving a bank robbery. While the actual depiction by Brody of a man trapped in a horrifying, isolated situation is technically apt, ameliorated by a thoughtful script conscious of environment and the escalating creativity of a desperate man, the straightforward handling of exceedingly dry material with a blank canvas character makes it difficult to engage beyond curiosity. Certainly we empathize with the scenario, imagining how we might handle it ourselves, but there's nothing particularly compelling about the blasé surface narrative or a man perplexed by his identity — an identity never really established. Fortunately, the occasional tense situation involving wildlife injects a bit of life into things, stepping away from endless scenes of Brody crawling around, groaning. In these moments, the potential of this modest endeavour is clear, as is the misfortunate that it's really only potential unrealized. Included with the Blu-Ray is a "Making of" supplement, which is essentially a series of sound bytes with Brody discussing his character, along with a "Woman's Perspective," where Dhavernas talks about her role, and a gag supplement on the fake severed head.
(Alliance)

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