Movies Reviews

The Disappearance of Alice Creed – Movie Review

By Anne Brodie Aug 11, 2010, 16:22 GMT

Two men - one in his twenties, the other nearer forty, both intensely focused on the task at hand - line the inside of a transit van with plastic. Shopping, they buy a drill, a mattress, and other supplies.  In a small flat they assemble a bed for the mattress and staple foam insulation and board to the walls and windows of a bedroom. Then, their meticulous preparations complete, they kidnap ...more

Gemma Arterton is a bit of an ‘it’ girl at the moment after starring opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in Prince of Persia and appearing in Clash of the Titans, The Quantum of Solace and the St. Trinian’s series. 

The role of Alice Creed, while brave and aggressive, is really raw and gritty and a complete turnaround for her rather delicate English Rose image.

Two men (the wonderful Eddie Marsan and suitably skittish Martin Compston) are in a building supply store, buying items that take on an increasingly threatening potential – wall soundproofing, locks, rope, drills, tarps, bedding, tape.  Something is not right. 

Then we watch them put together a two room space that looks like a torture chamber and prison, which of course, it is.  All this activity takes ten minutes, no words spoken; just two highly focused men building a human trap.

Our sense of dread is fully engaged.

The subsequent abduction scenes are extremely distressing and because the film is shot in a no-nonsense, naturalistic manner, they feel horrifically real.  Arterton screams like a banshee, through the ropes and tarp, as she’s carried up and into the waiting apartment.  She is tied to the bed, gagged and stripped and changed in a cleanly efficient, matter-of-fact, and speedy way. 

The door is triple locked and the walls are soundproofed so no one else can possibly know she is there.

Creed has been kidnapped for ransom because she has a rich father.  The men are carrying out what we learn is a painstakingly precise plan, crafted over years.  Nothing will go wrong.

Famous last words.  To this point the film has been exciting, disgusting, enthralling, dramatic, and real.  But once people start speaking the dramatic tension is snapped.  The film’s worst enemy is its predictability.  We know what the interpersonal politics will eventually reveal themselves, well in advance. 

We know that the three-hander will careen from one power balance to another because no one new comes on the scene.  It’s just three interconnected people looking to be top dog; the inspiration is money but as the film unfolds, money seems to be the least important thing.

The film is nightmarish for women, as Alice is humiliated time after time, made to go to the bathroom in front of her captors, be stripped at their will, filmed, bullied, terrified, and abused mentally, psychologically and physically.  It is extremely uncomfortable to watch and veers into misogyny. 

The film is well made however; it’s neat, clean, fast, well-paced, extremely efficient, and spare.  No frills and no false moves.  It’s like watching animals descend on prey; there’s not much you can do and you can’t look away, but is it art?

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35mm thriller
Written and directed by J Blakeson
Opens: August 6
Runtime: 100 minutes
MPAA: Rated R for violent content, pervasive language and some sexuality/nudity
Country: UK
Language: English