New Release Review - Confine

A reclusive former model is terrorized in her apartment.

Directed by: Tobias Tobbell
Starring: Daisy Lowe, Alfie Allen, Eliza Bennett, Emily Corcoran

Pippa (Daisy Lowe), once a model now a recluse, is confined to her apartment after a car accident has left her with with physical and psychological injuries. She spends her days dealing in art on online auctions and performing charity work via her computer, but has cocooned herself in her meticulously ordered living space away from prying eyes. However, Kayleigh (Eliza Bennett) is on the run from a heist gone awry and has just broken into Pippa's apartment. And so begins a game of Cat and Mouse.
On the surface this would seem to be a thriller very much in the mould of David Fincher's 'Panic Room', (the credits are derivative of his earlier and much imitated 'Seven' title sequence) but this is very much a two-hander, a chamber piece set in one location that has pretensions to be a lacerating psychological examination. Unfortunately one of it's leads is not up to the heavy lifting. Surprisingly this is not Daisy Lowe who acquits herself well in her first real role. On the surface, playing an ex-model shouldn't be much of a stretch, but here there is a fragile broken quality that is convincing and hints at better things to come in the future.

It's Eliza Bennett as Kayleigh that really lets the film down. It's a bit of a thankless part as written. She comes off more as a bitchy head girl bunking off from St Trinian's, rather than the sadistic psychological torturer peeling away at the veneer of middle class civility the film wants to show. She's not helped by such dramatically inert lines as “I'm no virgin”, tossed off to no one in particular.
Alfie Allen has a small role as Henry, boyfriend and partner in crime with Kayleigh, showing here along with 'Game of Thrones' his credentials as the go-to thesp if you want someone tied to a chair and roughed up.
Despite the limitations of the script, for its budget the film looks very slick. Filming all on set with no exteriors has allowed a flexibility of movement and striking use of angles that wouldn't have been achievable on location. If the script had the structural rigor of the visuals this would have been something special, more along the lines of 'Death and the Maiden' and 'Misery'. This is very much film as calling card. Lovely visuals for the showreel but while the shots are being composed it's like the actors are wandering around bickering in lieu of any real tension.

The home invasion drama is one of the most deceptively difficult film stories to tell. On the surface it seems perfect for a first timer, a handful of actors, one location and plenty of room to experiment. Done badly, it can look like a filmed play, which to Tobell's credit he manages to avoid. But without a razor sharp script visual panache will only hide so many flaws.
Tobell could be a name to watch in the future, he has the visual skills to produce something special if given a larger budget. 'The Disappearance Of Alice Creed' shows what you can do with three characters and a little bit of money. With more heart and attention to character this could have been its equal.

4/10

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Jason Abbey