Suspense in the Mold of The Twilight Zone
If you want a sequel to the 2008 found footage monster movie Cloverfield, you will be sorely disappointed in this movie. If you're open to a film that is tonally similar, yet tells a different story, you'll be pleasantly surprised by 10 Cloverfield Lane. Producer J.J. Abrams uses the Cloverfield name like that of The Twilight Zone—a singular brand used to tell anthology stories cut from the same cloth—and delivers a suspenseful, slow-burn thriller.
First-time feature director Dan Trachtenberg's film follows Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) as she wakes up in a subterranean doomsday shelter after a car crash. The man who saved her life, Howard (John Goodman), built the shelter with the help of Emmet (John Gallagher, Jr.), and claims that some kind of attack has left the air on the surface toxic. Michelle's skepticism and Howard's survivalist mentality make the film a consistently tense viewing experience, and screenwriters Josh Campbell, Matt Stuecken and Damien Chazelle manage to keep the audience's allegiances up in the air with the question of whether or not Howard is sane or deceitful. The fluid dynamic between Howard and his shelter-mates is at times reminiscent of that between J.K. Simmons and Miles Teller in Chazelle's Whiplash, as Howard is unflinchingly committed to his own methods.
Goodman steals the film with his calculated yet wide-ranging performance as Howard. His introduction as an older white man who took a young woman from a car crash and locked her in his bunker is not one that makes him sympathetic, but Goodman and the screenwriters flesh him out to the point that he may be trustworthy. He's at once captor and host, and the film never gives up this complexity for cheap thrills.
Winstead's Michelle does, on the other hand, elicit sympathy, and manages to do so without playing up her position as being "saved" without her consent. She's clever and keenly observant, always looking for when and how Howard might be lying. In this way she works perfectly as a surrogate for the audience in 10 Cloverfield Lane, because just when the film and its characters seem to be getting comfortable and used to their situation, she pushes the story toward the truth. Caught between two strong-willed characters, Gallagher's Emmet is the easy-going fellow who doesn't question Howard, but who doesn't turn a deaf ear to Michelle either. Gallagher isn't exactly comic relief here as much as he is a general tension-breaker between two forces, and he plays the role perfectly.
Trachtenberg, though limited to a handful of spaces for most of the film, makes the most of the bunker. He and cinematographer Jeff Cutter light each room differently, giving them distinctly different feels, and they find various different angles from which to explore those locations. The bunker grows only more familiar to the viewers as the story goes on, allowing the filmmakers to push into different corners and corridors for further exploration without the film feeling constrained. Bear McCreary's score builds on this to help create the film's eerie atmosphere.
Some viewers may take issue with 10 Cloverfield Lane's final act. Once again echoing The Twilight Zone, the ending puts a bit of a different spin on everything that comes before it. There are elements at play that don't feel wholly in line with the story the film tells up to a certain point, but the screenwriters manage to plant a few canny clues to keep everything on track through the finale. Even if the conclusion leaves some folks scratching their heads, there's no denying that the edge-of-your seat nature of 10 Cloverfield Lane permeates it from start to finish, and the powerhouse performance from Goodman, as well as strong work from Winstead and Gallagher, make the film a treat for fans of suspense.