The old fable of the dog with two bones tells the story of a dog who, upon seeing another dog with a bone in its mouth, opens its own mouth to try and take that bone, too, and loses both, realizing too late that he was only looking at his reflection in the water. ENCOUNTER is a “dog with two bones” movie, a film that approaches its story from two different directions and ends up losing both. It’s an approach that’s befitting of its lead character, the ex-Marine Malik (Riz Ahmed), who late one night shows up at the home of his two boys, Jay (Lucian-River Chauhan) and Bobby (Aditya Geddada), and takes them on an impromptu road trip, seemingly having informed his ex-wife (Janina Gavankar) and her new husband (Misha Collins) of the trip off-screen. As the “three Musketeers” (which Malik dubs the trio) travel across the Southwest apparently headed for a secret military base, Malik explains to his sons that there’s been a secret invasion of alien organisms that invade human hosts at a molecular level, controlling their minds. As the road trip continues, it becomes clear that Malik — and the film — are lying.
It’s likely that ENCOUNTER will be advertised as an alien invasion thriller, which is a shame since that is what it emphatically turns out not to be. This isn’t the case of an M. Night Shyamalan final-act twist, either — while that filmmaker often switches genres within a movie (or, rather, reveals that the film you thought you were watching has been something else the whole time), he manages to make his films feel tonally complete despite such gear shifts. Director and co-writer Michael Pearce, however, seems to want to flip the usual equation that occurs with genre films — instead of real-world subtext lurking within a genre narrative, ENCOUNTER presents a real-world narrative that uses visual cues and tonal elements swiped from genre films. In this way, the genre elements serve as representations of the film’s real-life issues, a switch that should work better than it does. For while using genre to enhance real-life themes (such as using zombies to comment on a loss of individualism, for instance) gives them a deeper resonance, ENCOUNTER’s use of genre feels more like a cheat, a cinematic shorthand that cheapens rather than enhances its characters and material.
Fortunately, the film is helped by lead performances that almost make up for its bait-and-switch narrative. Ahmed continues to demonstrate his ability to play emotionally and morally nuanced characters, making Malik both untrustworthy and a continually empathetic person. Chauhan and Geddada make their characters believable as innocent children while never letting their performances slip into lazy caricature, and their chemistry with each other as well as Ahmed importantly make their trio a positive one — Malik may have his troubles, but it’s never in doubt that he loves his sons. Introduced in the middle of the film is Octavia Spencer as Hattie, a woman who has worked with Malik in the past and believes in him no matter what or who tells her not to. Hers is the most challenging part with the least showiness, and Spencer is such a pro at this point in her career that she easily brings the warmth and gravitas to it that it needs.
It’s a shame that ENCOUNTER isn’t a fully fledged genre movie, because Pearce clearly has a knack for playing in that sandbox. The first act of the film has a wonderfully paranoid, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS vibe, particularly with the unsettling “clues” to alien infection Pearce makes a point of highlighting, as characters get stung or bitten by insects and then mysteriously fall ill a scene or two later. The opening sequence promises a unique alien invasion film all its own, as the camera follows a meteor falling to Earth that seems to contain parasitic extraterrestrial organisms at a microbial scale, including one that eventually appears to travel inside Malik himself. It’s such a strong, eerie opening that as the film unfolds it becomes obvious too early that something is amiss with Malik’s story about alien invasion as well as what Pearce has been showing us so far, the pieces not adding up. It makes the film itself an unreliable narrator, a trick that’s been done countless times before but always requires a deft hand to make the switch, and unfortunately Pearce’s prowess with the film’s genre aspects are more compelling than its traditional domestic drama.
It’s that switch of perspective and interpretation that hurts the film the most when taking ENCOUNTER as a whole. The reveal of Malik as an unreliable protagonist is akin to a horror film revealing that the heroine had been the killer the entire time, as Pearce and co-writer Joe Barton take Malik from righteous hero fighting an insidious invading force to a less than honest, broken man. One early scene sees Malik pulled over by a cop, a moment that’s a play on police using their positions to excuse racism which is thrilling and uncomfortable on first watch and tonally muddled after the reveal has happened. As the film continues, Malik has several similar encounters, a few of them deadly, and it’s not clear where the film stands on these actions. It’d be easier to give the movie the benefit of the doubt if it wasn’t so confused about its portrayal of mental illness, treating it like a binary concept instead of the complex condition it really is. The film recalls the similarly frustrating MIDNIGHT SPECIAL (2016) in the way it attempts to scale down big genre concepts to an indie-film level, losing what makes both special in the process. It doesn’t have the boldness of its other closest relative, BUG (2006), that film dealing with paranoia in a much more honest and uncompromising way. Pearce clearly wants ENCOUNTER to be a grounded story of a father and his estranged sons bonding and coming to terms with each other, and cheekily stages the climactic scenes in a very Spielbergian fashion. Unfortunately, the film’s heart and head are all over the place, making ENCOUNTER a thoroughly alienating experience.
Tags: Aditya Geddada, Benjamin Kracun, Janina Gavankar, Joe Barton, Lucian-River Chauhan, Maya Maffioli, Michael Pearce, Misha Collins, Octavia Spencer, Riz Ahmed, Rory Cochrane, The UK, The USA, Toronto International Film Festival
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