The Captive (2014)

(In French, On Cable TV, September 2022) If you’re aware of the demarcation between mainstream and genre fiction, you’re probably just as aware of what happens when specialists in one try to venture in the other. The Captive, in many ways, seems to be a cautionary tale about what happens when ambitious drama auteurs try to move in genre territory without quite understanding what makes those genres tick, and perhaps even carrying some innate disdain for what they perceive to be a lesser form of fiction. Atom Egoyan needs little introduction—he’s one of the most celebrated English-Canadian filmmakers, renowned for finely detailed character studies and hard-hitting dramas. In The Captive, however, he seems to conjure up a feverish nightmare of barely digested exploitation genre material, and attempts to square it with his own more ambitious preferences for plain-label drama. The focus is on a couple still desperately searching for their kidnapped daughter, years after her disappearance. Set in wintry Niagara, Ontario (the falls only visible in the background of a few scenes set in high-rise hotel rooms), the film features Ryan Reynolds in a far more dramatic register than usual, and such notables as Rosario Dawson, Scott Speedman, Bruce Greenwood and Mireille Enos. Alas, none of them can’t make the script any better, and this is where writer-director Egoyan loses his way: In a rush to wallow in exploitative elements, such as a child pornography ring for rich people, gratuitous tormenting of the grieving parents, a naughty relationship between two cops investigating the case, and the on-line luring of young victims by an older woman, it becomes obvious that he doesn’t have what it takes to make a genre film. The Captive is resolutely slow, glum and void of suspense—a car chase near the end of the film is handled without energy or visual continuity, showing just hollow are Egoyan’s attempts to ape genre films. And that’s a lesson worth learning by itself: Genre fiction is not lesser fiction, it’s different fiction, and The Captive shows just how badly filmmakers used to mainstream success can screw it up if they’re not willing to accept that they need to adapt to the requirements of genre fiction rather than try their woefully unsuitable usual technique with material that exceeds their grasp.