“For those of us who prefer entertaining or at least
enlightening science fiction films, than avoid The Divide like the radioactive
cloud that hangs over the doomed characters in this darkly depressing
film.”
Science Fiction, Post-apocalyptic, Drama
Staring - Lauren German/Eva, , Milo Ventimiglia/Josh,
Courtney B. Vance/Devlin, Ashton Holmes/Adrien, Rosanna Arquette/Marilyn, Iván
González/Sam, Michael Eklund/Bobby and
Abbey Thickson/Wendi
Director - Xavier Gens
Writer(s) - Karl Mueller and Eron Sheean
Rated R - Disturbing strong violence, sexuality, and
pervasive language
1 hr., 52 min.
I watch every genre film that comes out in any given
year, with very few exceptions. I probably skip horror films more than any of
my three favorite genres, because of my dislike for these sub-genres: slasher,
torture-porn and found-footage. Fantasy films seldom contain elements that I
find distasteful, so I seldom miss any of these films, except for the extremely
cheap ones or films aimed at young children. Science fiction is my favorite type of
film, so a film has to contain elements that I find very distasteful or just
plain dull for me to pass over. Even so, I occasionally go out of my comfort
zone and watch a science fiction film that I am fairly certain I will find
difficult to watch. Sometimes I am rewarded with a film that surprises me (like
Phase 7 did last year), but more often than not, I am sorry that I spent the
time and effort to watch a film I could not appreciate even on a purely
intellectual level (The Road – 2009 –immediately springs to mind). I have put
off watching The Divide for some time, but I finally bolstered my courage and
watched this post-apocalyptic drama.
The film opens with Eva and her boyfriend Sam looking out
their apartment window and seeing missiles streaking across the New York
skyline. When the first explosion hits, they immediately rush out of the
apartment and down the emergency stairwell. Most of the residents of the building
are already running down the stairs and there is much pushing and shoving as
people begin to panic. They finally get to the ground floor and the exit, when
another closer explosion rocks the building and forces them back into the
apartment building. Desperate for shelter, they see an open door leading to the basement
of the building, but a man is trying to close it. Eva, Sam and a few others
push against the door and manage to force their way in.
Once inside the basement, Mickey, who is the building
superintendent, tells the small group that he is in charge until it is safe to
leave. Marilyn’s young daughter Wendi begins to complain and keeps repeating
her need to go home. Mickey informs her and everyone that the radiation dust
from the fallout of the nuclear explosion will kill everyone, so no one can
leave until he says so. The rest of the group is made up of a yuppie gay man
Josh, his younger artist brother Adrien, Josh’s friend Bobby and an African-American
man Devlin, who no one seems to know. As the days pass into weeks, the group
grows increasingly aware that Mickey is hiding something and they suspect that
is the reason he will not allow them to enter his private room.
A loud banging is heard outside the steel door that
separates them from the contaminated air and Mickey grabs an axe to hold off
potential intruders. The invaders use a blow torch to cut the locked door and
enter. What happens next is a complete right-turn in the film’s plot and when
this portion of the film concludes, The Divide goes right back to where its
plot was headed originally.
The Divide is the type of Post-apocalyptic story that
shows humanity at its worst. As the film wears on and on, the characters in the
film all begin to gradually decline both mentally and physically. One reason
for the physical deterioration, which is only implied in the film, is that
because the door was breached, they are all gradually dying of radiation contamination.
Once this becomes obvious, not only do the characters begin to act more and
more selfish and sadistic, but as a viewer I lost interest in their survival because
I knew they were not going to do so. The only thing that could have made The
Divide a compelling drama for me was seeing these characters struggle for survival.
Once this hope was taken away, there was little to keep me interested; other
than the perverse voyeuristic pleasure in watching these characters deteriorate
to the point of near savagery. I do not find these type of scenes interesting,
so the film lost me before it was even halfway over.
One thing that stood out to me – and not in a good way –
was the soundtrack. There are many sequences in the film where the camera pans slowly
across all the characters in various stages of depression to show passage of
time and every single time this long repetitive piano music plays incessantly
over these shots. It was maddening to the point where I finally had to fast
forward through these merciless montages!
The only highlight of the film is Michael Biehn as Mickey,
who starts out being an unlikeable totalitarian bastard, but grows into a
stronger and more compassionate character, whose hidden motives are cleverly and
expertly revealed by Biehn’s subtle acting. The rest of the cast are written so
poorly that you have to feel sorry for the actors and actresses playing the
roles; particularly Rosanna Arquette who’s character suffers the worst
indignities in the film.
I honestly don’t understand how a film like The Divide
gets made. The three million dollar budget was spent I’m assuming on the mostly
talented cast. How anyone reading the screenplay would consider this worth
investing in is beyond me, as even if the story made sense – which because of
the previously mentioned “right turn” in the plot – it doesn’t, it portrays
such a negative view on humanity that only someone who has a similar pessimistic
viewpoint would find this story worth filming. If you are of a similar mental
bent, than by all means “enjoy” The Divide. For those of us who prefer entertaining
or at least enlightening science fiction films, than avoid The Divide like the
radioactive cloud that hangs over the doomed characters in this darkly depressing
film.
TECHNICAL: Acting – 8 Directing – 7 Cinematography – 7
Script – 5 Special Effects – 7
VISCERAL: Visual – 7 Auditory – 5 Intellectual – 6 Emotional
– 6 Involvement – 5
TOTAL - 63
