Into the Forest

SCREENED AT THE 2016 CHICAGO CRITICS FILM FESTIVAL: I feel as though there's been a lot of talk recently about the role that technology and the media is playing in what some people are considering to be "the downfall of our society." People say that our world is becoming one similar to Mike Judge's 2006 satire Idiocracy with the rise and success of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, which was successful primarily to the ridiculous amount of free media he received during primary season. Even people my age are saying that younger kids don't have imaginations anymore due to the easy access to smartphones and iPads. As an eternal optimist, I want to believe that our best years as a society are ahead of us, that my children will be able to have a similar childhood to the one that I had. I'm not a fan of tech-based fear-mongering, especially from people close to my age, but I do think there's a certain truth somewhere in it.

In Into the Forest, writer/director Patricia Rozema poses the question, "What if, all of a sudden, our access to this technology and media was suddenly lost? How would we be able to survive?" In the not-too-distant future, two young women named Nell and Eva, who happen to be sisters despite the fact that they treat one another like strangers, are living at their father's secluded cabin in Northern California when, all of a sudden, the power goes out. Like many annoying power outages, they just assumed it will be fixed in a matter of time; however, not only does it never get fixed, but soon word spreads that the entire country is in the dark. But thankfully for these two girls, their father is about as resourceful as they come, and it seems as though they're going to be fine...until he kills himself in a horrific chainsaw accident and they're both left to fend for themselves, and they're hardly as resourceful as their father (Nell is a bookworm and straight-A student while Eva is an extremely competitive ballet dancer).

Watching these two very different people who really only share gender and DNA in common have to work together just to survive in this cruel, brutal environment is relentlessly compelling to watch, especially given the fact that these two people are played by Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood, who bring so much humanity and emotion to these roles that at some point you don't even realize that (a) they don't look like sisters and (b) they're both in their late twenties, and these characters are clearly supposed to be much younger. Their chemistry is excellent, and their performances do a lot to suggest long-standing family ties and ratchet tension even in scenes that might seem uneventful on paper.

But throughout the inevitable hardship and suffering that these two young women face while trying to survive, there is always a slight glimmer of hope that permeates through every scene. (SPOILER): At one point during the film, Eva is raped by a local stranger who walks onto the property and gets her alone while Nell is out collecting water. Eva ends up getting pregnant from this rape and is determined to have the baby, despite Nell's pleas for her to have an abortion. This was a brilliant, beautiful storytelling decision on Rozema's part, as the scene where Eva gives birth to the baby amidst the dark woods and falling-apart house is an incredibly life-affirming moment that very much gives the film a "circle-of-life" theme, and reminds the viewer of the preciousness and beauty of Eva's child despite him being conceived in the most hateful of situations.

If I have one complaint about the film, it's that it's ending is a little too simplistic and vague for my liking. I understood the symbolism behind it, but what exactly happened felt a little out-of-character in terms of what these two women had been doing up until that point. But that quibble aside, this is one of the best (and definitely most thought-provoking) post-apocalypic dramas I've seen in the past few years that manages to have feminist and pro-life messages simultaneously, both of which I wholeheartedly approve of. This is available on most VOD platforms right now (I don't think it's in any Chicago-area theatres but I'm not 100% sure) and I absolutely recommend seeking it out.