CENTIGRADE: Needs More Heat

The one location movie (or almost one location movie) is hardly a novelty. Rope, Locke, and 127 Hours are just a few of the films that have taken advantage of restriction to heighten tension, anxiety, or intimacy, and the plethora of blueprints these movies provide to filmmakers makes new attempts a bit less impressive. It’s definitely a choice the audience will notice, though, and because of that it better has a good payoff.

One location is the approach co-writer and director Brendan Walsh was sort of stuck within Centigrade. Based on a true story, the movie is literally about being trapped in one place: a couple pulled their vehicle over during a blizzard in Norway and were frozen inside. Doors and windows were iced over, the snow-packed tight around them, and they had just a few paltry supplies from an emergency kit to keep them alive. A nightmare, for sure, one that could easily benefit from the claustrophobia-inducing effects of a one-location movie.

Except, for a long time, it doesn’t really go for horror. Tension, yes. Fear, yes, but not true horror. If Walsh was going for horror then he never got there, and the low-key substitutions he makes aren’t enough to sustain a feature-length film. It’s not so much that he terribly mishandles things as he gives us nothing to recommend. No horror, no thrills, no insight, no real point to the suffering on display.

Failure To Launch

The movie does, in fact, open in the vehicle. The rental SUV was intended to get them from the airport to the hotel and then on to the woman’s book signing, a nice business trip that gives the American couple a chance to get a glimpse of Norway. But the storm made driving perilous, so the winter weather greenhorns pulled over for the night and fell asleep. Amateurs.

The movie starts with their panicked discovery of the situation, waking up to their cold but surprisingly roomy coffin (movie magic!). The fact that the inside of the vehicle never feels that tight is a big missed opportunity that zaps much of the immediate tension, but the frosty windows surrounding them does make for a nice, consistent gloom. The couple’s initial bickering quickly fades and they take stock of their supplies, laying out a clear timeline for how long they might be able to survive.

Great, setup complete, countdown established, time for this thing to ramp up. And then it just… doesn’t. Too much of the movie stays at this stage, with their limited supplies being meted out responsibly and the tension between the couple hovering at understandably misplaced anxiety. I get that, as an audience, we’re stuck in the vehicle with them, but the plot shouldn’t be stuck, too. Something needs to make their situation worse or we need to see real, tangible displays of their dwindling chance of survival. You can only watch a couple snap at each other for so long.

When the film does finally move forward, it’s too little, too late. I think this impulse to downplay might stem from an admirable attempt to keep this grounded, to avoid the slimy feeling that would come with making this real-life nightmare into an exploitative thriller, but you’ve got to give the audience something. Centigrade forgot that.

Real Life People Get Lost

I know nothing about the real event this is based on, but given there were real people out there stuck in a frozen vehicle, I’m going to assume they were rounded human beings. I’m going to assume they had strengths that helped them out and flaws that made them vulnerable. I’m going to assume their relationship was multifaceted and full of quirks. You know, because they’re human beings.

It seems all of this got left out of Centigrade. That or these two people have the most stereotypical, gendered reactions to stress.

Downplaying the thriller aspect of this movie means there needs to be some juicy character stuff going on, but this fictional version of Matt and Naomi has none of that. Their arguments are about immediate concerns, rarely getting into historical grievances that would almost certainly rise to the surface under sustained stress. Matt consistently passes on food and gives extra clothing to Naomi, because you know, he’s the man. Naomi, meanwhile, makes dumb mistakes like leaving the cap off the water bottle and fumbling around with their cell phone. None of it is egregious enough to be outright sexist, but when the dynamic between your couple distills down to the woman being bumbling and frantic while the man is testy but providing what he can, your characters are going to feel like types instead of dynamic, real people (which is extra weird when they are real people).

Oh, and Naomi is pregnant. I assume that’s taken from reality, and that aspect provides the only truly gnarly, if unsatisfyingly presented, event in the movie. But it also pigeonholes the dynamic towards more standard gender roles (of course the dude is going to sacrifice everything he can for her because she’s carrying their baby). A filmmaker should be conscious of how this layer influences the story, and since it pushes it towards some trite dynamics, the filmmaker should be careful not to further emphasize them. But, again, Walsh missed that.

Vincent Piazza as Matt and Genesis Rodriguez as Naomi do what they can with the material, but it’s too slight for any actor to save. They at least make the couple palatable enough that you don’t get annoyed being stuck with them, but you don’t really care about them, either. And for a survival tale, that’s death.

Conclusion: Centigrade

This chilly thriller never turns up the heat, leaving the audience with little reason to chill with the imperiled couple. Thin characterization and a reserved plot doom any chance of getting viewers invested beyond basic human concern, which isn’t enough to sustain even the leanest thriller. It’s not a disaster or a triumph. It’s just…not much of anything.

Have you seen Centigrade? If so, did you find a good reason to stay in the vehicle? Let us know in the comments!

Centigrade releases on VOD and in drive-in theaters in the US on August 28th, 2020.

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