Want to know where all the truly thrilling dramas went when they devolved on our movie screens into sagas starring people in capes? They went indie. And director Edd Blott and screenwriter/co-director Patrick D. Green’s Beau Ideal is an exemplary example. It’s What Lies Beneath, minus the supernatural element, but packing a climax that will leave you gobsmacked!
The slow-boil yet atmospheric set-up begins with city-dwelling couple Jake (Patrick D. Green) and Rebecca (Michèle Tredger) taking up residence in a small town with picturesque surroundings outside the city of Portland, Oregon. Catching the eye of the locals, who figure them for more rich folks buying up the scenery, the couple’s entrée into the neighborhood is warm, bordering on tepid. But the peace and stillness are all Jake and Rebecca care about.
As Rebecca travels in and out to her job in town, Jake is left alone with his demons and thoughts. He soon finds the postcard backdrop isn’t enough to distract him, especially when he first catches sight of their neighbor’s son, Cole (Rylan Andrews), who seems on the verge of jumping off a cliff. Glimpsing how the child is silent and terrified of his father, Dave (Eric Martin Reid), this brings out the crusader in Jake, who anonymously reports Dave to child services after finding Cole bruised and afraid.
Rebecca scorns him for the act, citing his busy-body nature as the reason behind their exodus from the city. But Jake persists, for he knows all too well the prison it is to live with an abusive father, so he waits and watches.
” …brings out the crusader in Jake, who anonymously reports Dave to child services after finding Cole bruised and afraid.”
Still with pressure mounting from his mother dying, to his sister’s drinking, to his suspicion surrounding the fidelity of his wife, to his non-existent-but-necessary relationship with his father, each erupting like volcanoes around him, Jake soon experiences an emotional collapse, and takes justice into his own hands.
So, in the wake of his mother’s passing, and in the absence of his wife to stop him, Jake, following an encounter where he sees Cole with a black eye, devises a strategy to confront Dave. The road was already rocky between them, as Dave knows Jake had to be the one who reported them for child abuse. Jake employs old-fashioned seduction, buying Dave a case of his favorite beer to smooth over the bad blood. Yet, as the night and the questions wear on, the beer sharing shifts into a battle of words amid a minefield, with each man primed to ignite with one false step.
In good conscience, I cannot divulge anything further. Beau Ideal is a sterling silver suburban thriller with an emotional one-two punch at its core, complementing a brilliant script and central performance by Patrick D. Green, with special mention to Eric Martin Reid, who I thought was Sebastian Stan for a second. Co-director Edd Blott’s cinematography has won awards for a reason, and paired with the score by Alejandro Villanueva Medina, they paint the themes of psychological dread and rage, filling each frame with casual mastery.
I loved this movie the way I love Todd Field’s Little Children. Beau Ideal has that same undercurrent of darkness beneath a suburban facade, which endlessly intrigued the late-great David Lynch. There is only one thing left to say about this picture, and that is: see it and be awestruck. Yes, folks, compelling adult thrillers haven’t vanished. They’re here. They’ve gone indie. And they’re awesome.
Learn more at the official Beau Ideal website.
"…a sterling silver suburban thriller..."
