One overcast Thanksgiving Day in a Pennsylvania exurb, two little girls are abducted off a quiet neighborhood street in Prisoners, the exquisitely calibrated new thriller from French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve, who, after the art-house success of his last film, Incendies (2010), an Oscar nominee for best foreign-language film, now moves into the English-speaking mainstream. Happily, he has not checked art at the door.
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The movie’s stark themes—innocence and evil, faith and distrust, might and right—are set up in the opening sequence. A young deer ventures alone through a wintry forest, while in voice-over Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) intones the Lord’s Prayer; as the camera slowly pulls back, we see Dover teaching his teenage son to hunt. Driving back home with meat for the table, Dover explains that the most important thing he learned as a boy was to “be ready.” It’s a survivalist’s mantra: that with adequate foresight and stockpiles one can surmount any disaster that’s unleashed by nature or man.
Alex isn’t the only one who’s sleep-deprived; Dover can’t rest, and his grieving wife, Grace (Maria Bello), is so reliant on sedatives that she misses another suspect when he crosses her path. Only the Birches (Viola Davis and Terrence Howard) are able to keep a grip, but they’re iffy at best, given their collusion with Dover.
Directed by Denis Villeneuve
