Look Away

Movie Name: Look Away
Year of Release: 2018
Director: Assaf Bernstein
Starring: India Eisley, Jason Isaacs, Mira Sorvino, Penelope Mitchell, Harrison Gilbertson, John C. MacDonald, Kristen Harris
Genre: Drama, Horror
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 1
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Synopsis and Review

Writer/director Assaf Bernstein made a name for himself with the film "The Debt", which ended being remade by John Madden in 2010 with a stellar cast, which included Helen Mirren and Jessica Chastain. Since then he has devoted time to TV shows, with "Look Away" being his proper sophomore directorial effort. The film follows the story of 17 year old Maria Brennan, who is a high school student, with a less than harmonious family life and very few friends. She is bullied in high school, something she also keeps from her parents. Surprisingly she starts noticing and starts interacting with the reflection of herself in the bathroom mirror. This reflection of herself however bears a much stronger personality, and lures her with promises of being able to make her life better. After a particularly crushing high school prom, where she gets publicly humiliated, Maria decides to accept the reflection's help, and they "switch" places. The new Maria stands up to her bullies, and also unveils some harsh realities to her mom regarding some of her father's behaviors. This new version of Maria becomes increasingly daring, with violent behaviors which result in some accidents and deaths. As the body count increases, more about Maria's birth also comes into light, explaining her apparent duality of behaviors. 

There really isn't much to say about this film in all honesty. Assaf Bernstein poorly illustrates a rather pedestrian version of David Cronenberg's "Dead Ringers" (of sorts), but goes for the shock value and not for subtlety when it comes to the characters that populate this narrative. These pseudo twins, who are the center of the storyline, and who have very distinct personalities, bring to mind certain aspects of Barbet Schroeder's "Single White Female" (mostly the psychotic behavior Jennifer Jason Leigh embodied so well), but as the body count increases, the questions as to what exactly universe these characters live in becomes more and more puzzling. Maria and her evil twin, Airam (get it, it's Maria backwards), even though they're center stage of this feature, are surprisingly shallow in terms of character development. Maria is bullied, though we never really understand why. And Airam who also borrows/models some of her behavior from Lara Flynn Boyle's character in Tom Holland's "The Temp" or even from Linda Fiorentino's character in John Dahl's "The Last Seduction", seems to have forgotten that this isn't another episode of "Poison Ivy", and that the character in order to actually be edgy has to do more than squint her eyes or chase others on ice skates. The writer/director also throws in a variety of nightmares that afflict Maria's mom, in order to fully portray this reality as a dark one, but as most of the plot points in this film, it's both lackluster and undercooked (as are the incestuous hints that permeate throughout the film). Everything seems to be thrown into this broth, including all clichés that anyone can think of when it comes to high school tropes (though even those are not that greatly illustrated). This confection doesn't work, and the sole highlight for this film is Jason Isaacs who is a solid actor and definitely deserves better. This is just a film to avoid.