CENTIGRADE

(director/writer: Brendan Walsh; screenwriter: story and script by Daley Nixon; cinematographer: Seamus Tierney; editor: Bradley J. Ross; music: Trey Toy/Matthew Wang; cast: Genesis Rodriguez (Naomi), Vincent Piazza  (Matt); Runtime: 98; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Molly Conners/Brendan Walsh/Bradley J. Ross; Vincent Morano/Keri Nakamoto/Jane Oster/Amanda Bowers; IFC Midnight release; 2020)

“The low-budget film is enhanced by its fine technical work, but stalled by its cold story that never quite warms up.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

TV director Brendan Walsh makes his feature film directing debut in this claustrophobic survival story set in wintry Norway (but filmed in New York, entirely in a car). Walsh is also co-writer with Daley Nixon. It’s a fictionalized story inspired supposedly by a true story. The low-budget film is enhanced by its fine technical work, but stalled by its cold story that never quite warms up. There’s nothing exceptional about the film, as its acting, dialogue and simple story only amounts to how a couple escape from a car they’re trapped in for 4 days.

Naomi (Genesis Rodriguez) is a pregnant American author traveling in the couple’s SUV through Norway on a book tour with her husband Matt (Vincent Piazza).  When a blizzard hits the couple pull their car over to the side of a remote road to catch some sleep. When they wake-up, they can’t start their frozen car and find it covered in snow with them trapped in it. They go ugly and start blaming each other for their plight. Worried that they can’t even get a passing plow-truck to stop because it can’t see if anyone is in the car, they use their own devices to free themselves.

What I learned from the film is to never go to sleep in a parked car during a blizzard.

REVIEWED ON 9/8/2020  GRADE: C