The Gorge

The Gorge was released by Apple TV earlier this year. The streaming service released film starred two of the most popular actors right now; Anya Taylor Joy and Miles Teller.

The film starts quietly with Anya-Taylor’s character waking up in a cave and immediately assassinating a mystery man. The first time we see Miles Teller he is waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night and he goes for a drive. All of this is backed by some tense and intentionally eerie music and there is still no dialogue. He sits on a beach until sunrise.

The first dialogue happens at 4 minutes in. Miles Teller arrives at Camp Pendleton. We now find out his name is Levi and he is answering to Sigourney Weaver. He is ex-military, a sniper who still occasionally works for the military as well as a handful of private contractors.

We jump back to Anya Taylor Joy in Lithuania, visiting her moms headstone with her father. Her father keeps the bullet shells of her kills. That’s crazy. So the emotional core of this story seems to be the emotional toll that being a sniper takes on the gunman. Even if what they are doing seems like it is for the greater good. My current prediction 10 minutes into this movie is that the US government is going to send Levi after the Lithuanian sniper.

We just jumped to September but we weren’t given a starting date in the first place so I am really not sure how far we jumped. Weird decision.

I’ve always said that I like movies that allow the actors to do their jobs, meaning I like a lack of dialogue if it means that the screen is filled with clear action that tells the story clearly.

The exposition is being delivered in a transition of duty, the gorge has watchers. Their job is to keep whatever is in the gorge from coming out. So it seems that my theory has been busted open, kind of, and Drasa (Anya Taylor Joy’s character) is simply going to be the guard on the other side of The Gorge. Now obviously they are going to find a way to communicate with each other, despite that being against the rules.

Apparently the Gorge is so secret that after the guards year-long rotation, they are killed to keep it. We are now moving to October, so Levi has been at his post for a month. He sees Drasa across the gorge and it's not till November that we see anything from her perspective.

It’s Drasa that breaks the no communication rule, as expected. Why give them superpowered binoculars if you don’t expect them to see who is right across from them? Also how are you going to know if they communicated or not?

Did they just rom com this dystopian action movie? A ramones song and a really cute back and forth complete with a shooting contest that is abruptly interrupted with a very tense action sequence. So these “hollow men” that they are supposed to keep in the Gorge are super creepy looking, like they've melded with vines and tree roots.

Now it’s December, there is still very little dialogue which is great because they are doing a good job of telling this story through action. The problem I have is that the emotional arc that they set up in act one is completely gone. Because of the isolationist story, they aren’t exploring any kind of theme, emotional or otherwise.

We jump to February and Levi wakes up to the screams of the Hollow men, they sound like they are trying to break through a door. You can tell time has passed because Levi’s beard is thicker.

I think my main problem with this movie is that it wants to be too many genres at once. I’m not saying you can’t combine a romantic comedy with a dystopian action but maybe you shouldn’t. They aren’t balancing the genres very well. It's cute and all but I don’t think it's telling a very good story. There doesn’t seem to be a theme at all and I hate that.

The main focus of the movie seems to be, Miles Teller is hot and that’s true but it's not enough to build a narrative on.

55 minutes into the movie and now our leads are together and therefore there is much more dialogue happening. And now that they are actually acting opposite each other I am questioning both of their acting abilities. Neither of them seem very invested in their characters or in this nonexistent story. I’m really not feeling any chemistry between them.

They really should have just leaned into the history and dangers of this gorge because that is so much more interesting than anything that’s happening right now. Oh god there is still an hour. Where could you possibly go with this?

Okay…now we’re actually in the gorge. So it seems like the reason why this movie is so long is because they are telling two complete stories, in their own genres, one after the other. We just did our rom com and now we are doing our dystopian action movie…it's horribly structured.

Adding the love story really wasn’t necessary, they don’t have any chemistry and it's taking up a ridiculous amount of time. They make it out alive and then there is still 30 minutes left…what is happening?

We circle back to me being correct, he is in fact being sent after Drasa. And then he miraculously survives and tracks her down in France? Sorry bad storytelling.

Oooof, there was a lot of things wrong with this movie. I don’t feel compelled to give it anything over a 5/10. The structure was terrible, the blending of genres was poorly done and just extremely unnecessary and there was no emotional theme at all, despite them setting up a pretty decent one at the top of the movie. Waste of time.