This was the second movie on the second day of Nightmares Film Festival. I got the opportunity to see this as it made its Eastern United States premiere. This is one that I debated if it was horror or not. I've ultimately come down to the fact that it isn't. That's not to say that it isn't good or wasn't stressful. It also explores interesting ideas for sure. Before the movie, I also learned that this was a Russian movie made during pandemic.
We are following Matvey (Elijah Khodyrev) as he takes calls for work. He works for a bank and we hear the voice of those on the phone. His supervisor is Safira (Elena Perova) who doesn't much care for him. He is friends with Pasha (Evgeny Oreshkin) who works in security for the same bank. He is married to Nastya (Eugenia Lezgintseva).
Things all take a turn when he gets a call from Daniel (Vladislav Demchenko). He sees that this man's debt has been sold to a collector so he gets transferred. Daniel calls back though and tells Matvey that if he does that again, he will kill him. We see a laser pointed to his forehead and a stuff rabbit might hold a bomb. Matvey is given a choice, get access to VIP clients and move money from their accounts to Daniel's or die. The stakes are raised when Nastya and his family might also be a target if he isn't told what to do.
Now that I've given the premise here, I should say that this is all done looking at Matvey at his computer. He takes calls from all these people. The intro said that this was filmed in pandemic so they just needed to have Matvey on set until the end. I thought this was well done. It gave me vibes of Phonebooth in that we are watching this lead on the phone while he interacts with others. 95% of this movie is just watching him. I do think they did interesting things with camera movements. The tension is also raised by seeing Matvey do what he can to keep Daniel from killing him. He must think about the consequences for himself and his family as well. I was engaged to see how this would play out.
What is also interesting here is setting the stage of this fictional world of the movie right after a financial crisis. Being that this is a pandemic film, it is believable. I don't live in Russia, but I saw what this did here in the United States. I can still connect with it. There's also this idea that Matvey is stealing from the rich. That is a 'Robin Hood' idea where we wouldn't feel as bad. There is more going on behind the scenes where Matvey was a scapegoat and then given this job as repayment for going to jail. Relationships are used here to manipulate people and that adds to the tension. I found this to be a rather clever way of storytelling with the limited sets and characters seen.
Then to close this out, I'll re-iterate that I thought this was well-made. If you don't like one set, for the most part, movies, I'd say skip this. If that is something you're into, give this a watch. I thought this was a rather clever drama/thriller that with the limited things used was still effective to me. It shows what you can do with sound design for sure.
My Rating: 7.5 out of 10.
