Prolonged Exposure movie review by Movie Review Mom

MOVIE TITLE: Prolonged Exposure
Now available on streaming (see list below)

RATING: PG

LENGTH: 1 hour, 48 minutes

Movie Review Mom GRADE: B-

IN A NUTSHELL:

This new Indie drama has already won several awards from various film festivals. Writer/Director Travis Thoms told me, “It’s different from what most people expect.” It offers mystery, crime, and a psychological look at trauma. When I asked the director what inspired him to write the movie, he stated, “My day-job is mental health counseling, and the confidentiality of my profession has always intrigued me. While we are required to disclose to someone if one of our clients is going to hurt themselves or someone else, what happens if we find out something horrible that doesn’t fall within those exceptions? Who could we tell without violating professional ethics? I decided to start my script on that premise. As I refined the script, honing it to work within our very limited budget, it evolved into something, I think, a little deeper.”

He continued, “The film seems to have a wild variation in the reactions it gets from audiences. Art film and film noir lovers often enjoy its throw-back feel and all of the hidden film references. Psychology fans love the Freud jokes. People familiar with PTSD and grief can relate to the psychological arc of the film, and often find it moving. Some, whom I’m guessing haven’t fully moved through their own pain, find the film trivializing in its approach to sexual and violent trauma. Others find it to be just a slow-moving mystery, and of those, there are people that dig the anxiety that builds up; others find it boring. There is a set of people who have told me that they enjoyed seeing it the second time much more than the first, or come up to me to tell me about their favorite character. And then there are those who saw it looking for an action film because that’s how the distributor advertised it. Needless to say, they HATED it. It’s a complicated film; more so than I intended. But that’s what it had to be.”

TIPS FOR PARENTS:

Kids will be extremely bored. So will some parents.
Discussion of sexual assault.
Some profanity
Talk of a bombing as survivors discuss their feelings with a therapist.

THEMES

Fear
Anger
Sadness
Trauma
“The longer we try to avoid things, the worse they get.” – Murdoch Lane (Addison Foskey)
When I asked the director, Travis Thoms what messages he hoped audiences would take away from the movie, he shared, “I intended the film, as I said, to be a psychological mystery based on 70’s film noir. I think, on the surface, we achieved that. However, it became a film about healing, overcoming the wounds we all have inside, and the bittersweet and frightening journey that entails. It’s hard to sum the take away of that in one phrase. I guess I want people to know, that with good help, and good friends, that journey is a little easier.”

THINGS I LIKED:

• Fans of Dean Cain from Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman: Season 1 will be excited to see him in this film. The director told me, “Dean Cain is one of the nicest people that I have met in the business, and a truly stand up guy for being willing to be in our film. Due to time and money constraints, he shot all of his scenes in one day.” The movie was actually filmed in only 14 days. All of the actors, except for Dean Cain, are locals from the Albuquerque area. The movie was made for less than $70K!
• I actually like movies that start and I don’t know what’s going on. Slowly…very slowly…you start to piece together the story.
• Some humor, although it mostly manifests as sarcasm between two therapists.

• The color palette features dusty, muted colors, which is probably how survivors see the world after they experience trauma.

* There is a cast of characters you’re not quite sure about and which ones to trust, which makes solving the mystery more interesting.

There are some fun Hitchcock visual references in the film. The movie is an homage to 60’s and 70’s film noir.
It’s tricky filming an entire movie with only 2 locations, but I thought the director did a great job with them.
One of the director’s film influences is Still Of The Night by Robert Benton. I can definitely see some of that in this movie.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:

• Some of the acting isn’t very good with stiff dialogue in moments.
• The pacing is extremely slow.

* The big climax of the movie should have been more frenetic to contrast the slow, measured pacing of the rest of the film. Instead, not much time was spent on it, so it didn’t feel as traumatic as it could have.