2022 (USA) 85 minutes
Directed by: Amy Redford
In this immersive thriller, a young love affair becomes a menacing game of cat and mouse. Nothing and no one are as they seem. It’s a worrying combination for many parents, and when Anna (Grace Van Dien) tells her mother, Beth (Summer Phoenix), that she’s met a boy online, Beth goes on full alert. It turns out Anna’s new crush is not a boy but a man — 28 years old, and saying all the right things to a girl on the verge of 17 as she cradles her phone in her bedroom. Then, without invitation, there he is, on the family’s doorstep. WHAT COMES AROUND has a terrific starting premise, drawn from the experiences and anxieties of so many families. But it twists beyond that to take the film into a territory that’s both thriller and thoughtful moral drama. The familiar conflicts between a mother and her adolescent daughter get ever more complicated by the presence of Anna’s boyfriend Eric, who seems nice but is disturbingly persistent. Beth, a single mother, may need to call on her fiancé Tim (Jesse Garcia), who is a cop.
Premiere – 2022 Toronto Film Festival
Director Amy Redford and others in attendance
Incline Village Cinema – December 3 – 6:15pm