In Cold Light takes us on different rides
- Jonathan
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
In Cold Light opens with local drug lord Ava, played by horror familiar Maika Monroe, lying down in the desert with drug paraphernalia in her hand. She wakes up and drives to a suburban drug house to buy some pills. Shortly after the transaction begins, amidst the sounds of muscle playing videogames and ping pong, the house is raided by the police and Ava is arrested after a brief chase.
Two years later, Ava is released from prison and forced to work at a rodeo belonging to her deaf, retired bull rider father (Troy Kotsur, recently in Primate). Her relationship with her father is painfully strained, and her loving, supportive brother Tom (Jesse Irving) is the apple of their father’s eye, primarily because he doesn’t know Tom is involved in the drug empire.
After an oxy deal goes wrong, Ava is pursued by cops and muscle working for Claire (Helen Hunt), a powerful rival drug lord.
In Cold Light is the first English-language feature from Canadian filmmaker Maxime Giroux. The crime thriller is one that hastily goes in several different directions. An obvious theme of the movie is family, and the cast tries their best to convey that with a script that, unfortunately, doesn’t give them a chance to do so at full potential. Questions of forgiveness and redemption are only barely able to emerge from a cracking shell of lackluster dialogue and unsteady chase sequences.
Indeed, one of the film’s weak points is its overuse of transitionary scenes, mostly of Ava running from someone. During these sequences, the camera appears to be chasing Ava on its own shaky legs. On that same note, however, there are some surprisingly great shots in the film from cinematographer Sara Mishara, who seemed to understand what Giroux was trying to visualize.
But In Cold Light can’t seem to find a topic to focus on. The film introduces topics of action and emotion, but never truly explores them. The topic of survival is blatantly clear, but the more emotional topics don’t manifest as effectively as Giroux may have intended. One scene depicts Ava as she experiences what I believe to be a hallucination (it’s not made explicitly clear) of a cow in an abandoned urban street before a scene that depicts aged versions of her father and Amy—Tom’s daughter and Ava’s niece—talking about a perceived stranger near their own cow (I can't help but wonder if the consistent cattle appearances are a reference to Helen Hunt's classic "cow" line in Twister ).
The film lacks a lot of intimate shots between multiple characters, and Ava is generally distanced from the other characters for most of the film. This initially works in the film’s favor, as it conveys this sense of isolation for Ava that doesn’t change until the very last shot of the film in which her father holds her hand. In this respect, I feel the film earned the final shot. In one opportune shot I wish more films took advantage of, Ava looks at her reflection in a pool of blood.
One scene that sticks out occurs about 45 minutes in, when Ava and her father are talking in his backyard at night (after he finishes some grief-managing nighttime beekeeping). They communicate entirely in ASL and have to continuously wave their arms to activate the motion light. Having no verbal dialogue, Monroe and Kotsur rely entirely on emotion and it intensifies their communication despite having a considerable physical distance between them.
Ironically, the best dialogue in this film is nonverbal. The script, in my opinion, was finalized about one or two drafts too soon, and it results in dialogue that sometimes borders on cliche.
In Cold Light is one of those films that leaves you wondering if the filmmakers were trying to teach you a lesson, but the lesson itself wasn’t very clear. But it’s also one of those films where you could see where improvement could've been used, and you can piece your own lesson together. But whether this was Giroux’s intention or not is another question entirely. Were there flaws with his first feature-length English film? Yes. Do I look forward to what he’ll show us in the future? Absolutely.
In Cold Light is available to stream on demand on multiple platforms.
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