As Alone opens, Jessica, played by an excellent Jules Willcox, is packing up for a move. She’s headed into the Pacific Northwest and we quickly discern that she’s fleeing her life in the aftermath of a recent tragedy. We’re only about five minutes into the movie when the tension starts to mount; Jessica has an uncomfortable and unsettling encounter on a rural road and we feel the dread start to soak in. The first third of this movie, which runs a total of just a bit over ninety minutes, is an exercise in screw-tightening suspense as Jessica starts to believe she’s being followed by someone with bad intentions. The movie puts us right in her headspace where, just like her, we’re just not sure if her fear is well-founded or if these feelings of fear, uncertainty and paranoia are caused by the trauma of what she’s just been through. This first half-hour is near Hitchcockian in the way it kept me on the edge of my seat, tense and uneasy. The film doesn’t sustain that level of quality all the way through, at least in my opinion, but the remaining hour of the film is still very good for a thriller of this kind. The trailer and most of the advertising material unfortunately spoil the plot well into the third act, but in case you have avoided seeing those, I’m not going to do so. Suffice it to say that this film ultimately becomes a struggle for survival and that Jules Willcox really is a trooper. She’s giving a really raw performance that must have been both physically and emotionally exhausting. John Hyams’ direction and Federico Verardi’s cinematography are surprisingly beautiful for a film of this type. There are a lot of really beautiful nature shots and Hyams also knows how to hold a shot just a little longer than most directors would to build suspense. Marc Menchaca, the only other actor with a large role, is quite good for most of the movie; there’s one climactic scene that he unfortunately kind of bumbles, but other than that, he has a nice facility with tone. The script could do with being just a bit less bare bones; this is clearly a screenplay that’s been stripped to bare bones for maximum speed and efficiency, but I could have used a bit more work on Menchaca’s character and the final scene between Willcox and Menchaca in particular really misses a great opportunity to bring up a couple of things and kind of make the movie “about” something in a thematic sense. Still, these are pretty minor complaints for a movie that is, end of the day, aiming to get you on the edge of your seat and does so more or less successfully for its entire running time. It’s a thriller that consistently thrills, which is rare enough; that it has a lot more to recommend it in terms of performances and visuals is the icing on the cake. 3 ½ stars.
tl;dr – bare-bones thriller is stripped down and very effective at screw-tightening suspense; boasts surprisingly striking visuals and a great lead performance. 3 ½ stars.