Malik (Riz Ahmed, centre) is determined to prepare his sons to fight the aliens
Amazon Content Services LLC
Encounter
Michael Pearce
UK cinemas, Amazon Prime
ENCOUNTER brings together three of the most exciting stars in the British film industry: director Michael Pearce, whose debut feature Beast was critically acclaimed on its release in 2017, screenwriter Joe Barton, who created the equally lauded Giri/Haji, and Riz Ahmed, whose performances in Four Lions, The Night Of and Sound Of Metal secured his status as one of the UK’s best actors.
For the first half of Encounter, their talents complement each other perfectly. Ahmed stars as Malik Khan, an ex-soldier on a mission to rescue his two young children Jay (Lucian-River Chauhan) and Bobby (Aditya Geddada) when the world comes under attack from an extraterrestrial invasion that is made more terrifying by the fact that the aliens come in the form of parasitic microorganisms that first infect insects, then move on to tackle humans.
Encounter begins by immediately establishing the seriousness of the extraterrestrial threat. Before the title sequence even hits the screen, we see the aliens arrive on Earth, attack insects and then quickly explode in numbers. Pearce shoots this sequence with a detail that is simple to follow yet sinister and creepy. So much so that the subsequent shots of insects will make your skin crawl.
The action ratchets up further when Malik’s ex-wife Piya (Janina Gavankar), who doesn’t see the rescue in quite the same light, informs the authorities that her children have been kidnapped. Special agents Shepard (Rory Cochrane) and Hattie (Octavia Spencer) are put on the case and set off in pursuit across the mountains and deserts of California and Nevada.
At this early stage of the film, it is a blast, successfully towing the line between a riveting sci-fi drama and a road-trip movie.
Ahmed commands the screen instantly, giving Malik a toughness and intensity that emerge gradually as the story progresses. The young actors who play his sons are just as impressive, but for very different reasons. It won’t take long for audiences to be charmed by Geddada, who brings a much needed levity and heart to the film. Chauhan becomes more confident as time goes on, displaying an impressive maturity and strength of character. Pearce gives Malik, Jay and Bobby the space to build a genuinely touching connection.
“Ahmed commands the screen, giving Malik a toughness and intensity as the story progresses”
With all this going on amid the beauty and desolation of the Californian mountains, it is impossible not to be drawn into the story. Barton’s economical and believable script propels the film forwards, while providing just enough backstory on the alien attack to keep audiences intrigued. The soundtrack, too, subtly makes the alien creatures feel present and menacing, without ever allowing the sound of their advancement to get in the way of the scene-building and storytelling.
Then, just when Encounter is really getting under way, Pearce hits us with a seismic shift in direction. While potentially a deliberate ploy to surprise the audience and keep us engaged, it doesn’t quite work. Instead, it disrupts what was building into a beautiful and unnervingly atmospheric experience and throws us for a loop. For a good 10 minutes after this turn, it feels as if the story is thrashing around. It is unnerving to say the least.
Despite this unexpected shift in perspective, the narrative isn’t entirely derailed. It soon finds its footing again, and Ahmed’s continually powerful performance ensures that Encounter remains intriguing all the way to its finale. Chauhan, alongside him, does a great job at keeping the intensity high.
On the other hand, anyone who was enjoying the sci-fi-cum-road-trip experience may find themselves less invested in the more intimate and psychological character study that Encounter becomes. Ultimately, by the time the credits roll, it feels like two separate movies that have been jammed together to form an uneven psychological sci-fi thriller that, while good, could have been so much more.
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Source: Humans - newscientist.com
