Fear of Rain (2021)

(On Cable TV, October 2021) There’s a point, halfway in Fear of Rain, when I realized that whatever the film was going to do next was going to be disappointing. There was no possible escape. Either choice was bound to be underwhelming. Considering that this point came before a twist that I disliked, don’t expect this review to be particularly gentle. As the film begins, we get to know our young protagonist: recently released from a psychiatric institution, she sees things that aren’t there and hears voices that don’t exist. Quickly ostracized at school for obvious reasons, she finds some companionship in a quirky boy, but grows increasingly convinced that her next-door neighbour is holding a small girl hostage. Having already gone so deep in a psychological thriller, viewers know that there’s more to come. Either we’re going to go supernatural or not, either she’s going to be right about the neighbour or not. Heck, are we even convinced that all characters are real?—as the film itself points out, that new boyfriend seems too nice to be true. By the time Fear of Rain wraps it up in a flurry of imaginary characters, psychopaths, and self-reflective irony, I wasn’t exhilarated as much as convinced of three things: 1. Spending time inside a schizophrenic character’s head is not pleasant; 2. This is not the ideal film to talk about mental illness; and 3. The trend of movies with imaginary character needs to go away fast. The fast-paced ending does make up for some of the preceding dreariness, but not that much—Fear of Rain still feels overlong and unpleasant, and in the worst “psychological thriller” tradition pushes believability far beyond the breaking point. No matter what writer-director Castille Landon intended, she was limited by her premise—it’s not easy to deliver a satisfying story when it starts by acknowledging that not everything is real.