Harrison Gilbertson | Through the Shattered Lens

Poor Maria (India Eisley)!

Maria is a 17 year-old high school student in Canada. She goes to a school where everyone wears a uniform, everyone plays hockey, and everyone is looking forward to a prom that is going to be held on an ice skating rink! (Personal injury attorneys love this school!) Everyone is obsessed with living on the ice but Maria can’t even skate. Popular hockey player Mark (John C. MacDonald) taunts Maria for not being able to maintain her balance. Her best friend, Lily (Penelope Mitchell) offers to teach Maria how to skate but Lily turns out to be a cruel and taunting teacher, probably because she knows that Maria has a crush on her boyfriend, Sean (Harrison Gilbertson).

Maria’s life at home isn’t any better. Her mother, Amy (Mira Sorvino), is suffering from crippling depression and often can’t even be bothered to get out of bed or off the couch. Her father, Dan (Jason Isaacs), is a plastic surgeon who is obsessed with the idea that he can fix any flaw through surgery. He’s the type who cruelly critiques his daughter’s looks, despite the fact that Maria is actually a very pretty girl whenever she can find the courage to actually look up from the floor. Dan is also cheating on his wife. Perhaps the only good thing that Dan does is that he encourages Maria to stay home from school, though his reasoning is that she doesn’t look good on that particular day and she needs to get her “beauty sleep.”

Seriously, watching this movie, your heart truly breaks for Maria. It’s as if the whole world has been against her since the day she was born. Everyone gives Maria a hard time for not having more confidence but how can someone be confident when all they hear is about how much of a disappointment they are? Maria’s only friend is her reflection in the mirror.

At first, Maria freaks out when her reflection starts talking back to her. Airam, as Maria’s reflection calls herself, may look like Maria but she initially seems to have a totally different personality. Airam is confident in both her appearance and her sexuality. Airam is willing to strike back at the people that have hurt her. Airam is confident where Maria is insecure. When Maria talks to Airam, she ends up laughing so loudly that Amy actually comes into the bathroom and asks if Maria is smoking weed. After Maria is cruelly humiliated at prom, Maria agrees to switch places with Airam by kissing the mirror. Suddenly, Maria is the one in the mirror and Airam is the one who is in the real world, looking for revenge against everyone who has hurt Maria.

Or is she? Watching the film, I found myself wondering if Maria was just imagining talking to her reflection and perhaps “the switch” was all in Maria’s mind. Perhaps Airam isn’t some malevolent force that’s brought into the world as much as she’s just Maria having been pushed too far by the cruel taunts of her classmates and her father’s refusal to show her the consideration that he shows to his mistress. Airam is soon doing everything that Maria wishes she could do but when people start dying, Maria begs Airam to stop. Is Maria really trapped in the mirror and begging Airam to stop or is she just imagining a conversation with her own conscience? India Eisley’s performance keeps you guessing.

This is an intriguing film, even if is sometimes a bit too ambiguous for its own good. (The final shot is artfully done but it still made me want to throw something at the TV.) The film’s greatest asset is India Eisley, who is convincing whether she’s the mousy Maria or the bold Airam. Jason Isaacs, as well, gives a strong performance, turning his plastic surgeon into one of the all-time bad fathers. Watching Isaacs’s performance as Dan, it’s hard not to understand why Dan’s daughter would want to hide in a mirror.

Happy Horrorthon! With all the streaming services that I review, you’d think one of them would comp me for a month! Feel bad for me… What do you get when you mix: Religious ferver, sacrifice, cannabalism, a soon to be baby daddy, a really skinny dirty kid/oracle, a dog, alien influenced grass, and A LOT of REALLY stupid choices? Yep, you get “In the Tall Grass”. This sounds really convoluted, but the tall grass is just that, but it’s also evil or controlled by an alien spaceship. I’m guessing spaceship. The story is basically Tommyknockers, but without any inventions and far less math.

Let me explain, Becky is unmarried, pregnant by a musician of sorts, and on her way to give up her baby to a family in San Diego. Cal, her brother, is driving her cross country to do it. Why are they driving and not flying? I don’t really know because the adoptive family would’ve definitely paid for a flight, but the adoptive parents make remote bad choices like everyone else in this story. Let’s call this Bad Decision #1. They decide to stop and they hear a boy yelling for help who is purportedly lost in the tall grass and needs emergency services. Becky and Cal do not have EMS training, supplies, or even a compass- so they decide to enter the tall grass because they are stupid..really. This is Bad Decision #2. Really what did they think that they would do other than get lost? They didn’t even think to call the police first! The police by the way would’ve said DON’T GO IN THE GRASS or pay a lot for that muffler. The two of them rapidly realize that they are lost and not really in normal grass.

Later, the soon to be Baby Daddy- Travis- shows up at the cornfield. He finds his girlfriend’s abandoned car. It’s been there a while. Does he call the police? Nope. Now, I get some folks want to be their own first-responder and that’s respectable if you are basically competent. Travis is not call police – Bad Decision #3. Travis then decides to also trounce around in the grass …. and gets lost. Bad Decision #4.

Travis finds Tobin the boy that called Becky into the grass and he knows A LOT about everyone: Travis, Becky, Cal, and all the other people in the grass. Yes, there is another family in there, BUT the dad in the family has gone full on EVIL. That man is Ross (Patrick Wilson). Ross was a normal person until he went into the grass and touched the monolith rock at the grass maze’s center. The rock tells you to do things like how to get out of the grass, how to smash your wife’s skull – yep that happened, and whether or not Keto is just plain bullshit.

I’d like to take a second to write about Patrick Wilson’s performance. I liked it. Granted, I’m a fan of his work, but it was fun to see him play a villain. He had the phony real estate thing down and he could really turn up the rage. Also, his character was the only one not to make stupid choices.

The story shifts into a cat and mouse game of Ross hunting Becky and the rest of the people down to kill them over and over again. Over and over again? Yes, there’s a time loop created by the rock. So, you get lost in the grass a lot and killed a lot by Ross. Bummer. Their only hope is to kill Ross and stop the cycle. Will they kill Ross? Will they remain in the tall grass? Will I get up to benching 315Lbs (142 Kg)?

Is this movie worth watching? Well…the constant bad decisions really make it hard to sympathize with the characters. I feel like the grass could’ve been more choosy or maybe the grass is a rescuer alien entity likes chaos like ALL of my ex-girlfriends. The movie also really reminded me of Cube and it turns out it was written by Vincenzo Natali – the writer and director of Cube. Well, it basically was Cube meets evil Field of Dreams. What is old is new again and again and again…wait I just wondered into some grass. No…wait, it’s just the kitchen. Do you want anything as long as I’m up?

For all you Stephen King nerds there were some Easter eggs In The Tall Grass, See Below: