**No Spoiler Promise**
Generally, the less you know about a movie, the better the experience. So much of a good movie's power comes from how it plays on expectations, both fulfilling and defeating them. To recommend, or not recommend a movie, however, requires some evidence. "Go see it" is a pretty weak endorsement on its own.
I'll describe one scene that gives little away about this "science fiction action horror film" with a poster showing Anna Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller leaning into a kiss over the namesake Gorge.
When Anna Taylor-Joy puts on a record of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's song "Spitting off the Edge of the World," and dances to it, I entered Movie Nirvana.
This is a special realm, the pinnacle of movie enjoyment. It happens when a movie is perfect in every way. All disbelief is suspended as I feel the moment without reservation. Karen O's mournful fairy voice fills the theater as the mournful fairy Taylor-Joy dances her seductive dance. Miles Teller watches and we all know his heart is lost to her then, if not earlier.
Perhaps this was because I find the Yeah Yeah Yeah's songs powerful and moving. Or perhaps because have long had a fantasy of suddenly breaking into wordless dance with a beautiful stranger I meet on a sidewalk, eyes locked, bodies swaying and turning around one another, then continuing on our individual ways, a perfect moment undisturbed by the complications of "happily ever after." Of course, I don't much like dancing, so am not good at it from lack of practice. Were I to try such a move with a strange woman, I'd likely get maced. So it remains a fantasy. A couple that connects through wordless dance has a deep a appeal for me. It is lovely to find filmmakers who share that feeling.
Good movies are the realm of improbable fantasy, the place where the impossible happens, and likeable characters manage it (almost) effortlessly. The Gorge is such a movie.
There is much that is improbable in The Gorge, but it does not annoy the way Star Wars midichlorians do because the aim is light popcorn movie fare, not serious myth building. The improbable bits are often endearing. I won't describe them because their power is in catching us off guard. For a "science fiction action horror film" there are many funny moments, largely built on these improbabilities. There were as many audience laughs as gasps.
The film world feels small, but in a good way. Though the budget cannot have been huge, it doesn't feel cheap-CGI or cardboard sets. What we see of the Gorge-world feels like enough. It's a manageable universe. After-movie discussion with my wife was mostly about its strengths, not its weaknesses.
We saw The Gorge last night, at a pre-release showing at The Music Box here in Chicago. Scott Derrickson was interviewed on stage afterward. He came across as a likeable fellow, punk-geeky and not weighed down by pretensions. He told how he learned from James Cameron what making the The Abyss had taught him: that essentially, in spite of all the cool special effects and plot complications, The Abyss was good because it was about two people in a tight space. So Cameron directed Titanic on those lines. The Gorge is of this same genre, with the action, horror, science fiction, political thriller stuff all side dressing.
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