Louis Hunter) do have meaning, yet they never interlock with the flurry of dopey highs and perverse lowsDekker explores. A still from Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls by Andrew Bowser, an official selection of the Midnight section at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Jack Goes Home has a lot of weird stuff going on. Had a little bit more time been spent trimming the fat and polishing the dialogue, Jack Goes Home could have easily been a much better film. Robertson is a non-factor for most the film, whereas Lin Shaye turns in another fun genre role as Jacks tormenting mother but Culkindraws attention in every scene. Jack is at first unfazed by the tragedy: We live, we drive, we crash, we die, he blankly tells his girlfriend, Cleo (Britt Robertson). Earlier this year he co-starred in the dark home invasion thriller Intruders, and now he is front and center in Jack Goes Home. For better or worse, however, the end product is in fact quite ostentatious in its scripting and visual execution. MPAA rating: R, for disturbing violent and sexual content, language throughout, and drug use, Playing: Arena Cinelounge at the Montalban Theatre, Hollywood, See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour . Project: Nightlight Has Delayed March 3 Release, New Beta Early Access Gameplay Trailer Gives Diablo IV Fans a Taste of Hell [Video]. News, Reviews, and more! //]]> Jack heads home for the funeral, but when it gets there, he sees that his mother is not doing too well. J.P.: Editor (EIC - Editor in Cheif), Writer (CC - Content Contributor); document.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id", "ae3eee6fbc93e918cfe9967e5459a4c1" );document.getElementById("facec42938").setAttribute( "id", "comment" ); Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Thomas Dekkers disparaging darkness might rely a bit too heavily on haunted aesthetics. As it is rife with ambiguity and heavy with symbolism, Jack Goes Home is much more arthouse than traditional thriller or drama if you had to label it, though that is not necessarily a bad thing. As mentioned before, the script was written over the course of three weeks, and it shows. Jack Thurlowe's world is turned upside down when his beloved father is killed in a brutal car accident. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | Photo by Chananun Chotrungroj. Will most genre fansfeel the same way? Available online. Jack Goes Home is a bold movefor Dekker and you have to admire the sheer ambition of the project. How could you not wonder about a hyper-literal pedant staring daggers into your eyes as he breaks down your inferiority with an effortlessly constructed line of dialogue utilizing vocabulary that either frustrates your ignorance or stings as their meaning sears into your skin? Films that have premiered in this category in recent years include Brian and Charles, Hive, Luzzu, The Souvenir, The Guilty, Monos, Yardie, The Nile Hilton Incident, and Second Mother. The films genre hopping and preposterous plotting might not be so bad if Dekker seemed like he was having more fun directing it all. The film stars Matt Dillon in the lead role and a whole bunch of guest stars including Uma Thurman. Nevertheless, even with a few issues that nagged me, I still ended up enjoying Jack Goes Home. Dekker quite openly admitted that he did not want to make a pretentious festival film while creating Jack Goes Home, a narrative that was inspired byhis own dealings with grief and his fathers death. The scriptwill be especially frustrating for thosewho do not have much patience for a dreary cinematic experience that focuseson the tedium of tragedy. There is no subtext inJack Goes Home. Thomas Dekker should be proud of his second film. Grappling with the natural release of his childhood and the promise of his forthcoming adulthood, he is hit hard by the news of his father's death. Courtesy of Sundance Institute. After Jack learns that his father has died in a car crash, he travels back home to stay with his mother, Teresa (Lin Shaye), as she recovers from injuries suffered in the same accident. Article "'Jack Goes Home' Thriller Spirals Into Madness", by Jonathan Barkan, "Bloody Disgusting", August 24, 2016, Article "Rory Culkin's Life Becomes A Nightmare in Trailer for 'Jack Goes Home'", by Clark Collis, "Entertainment Weekly", August 25, 2016, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jack_Goes_Home&oldid=1107841227, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 1 September 2022, at 05:23. World Premiere. He is in his mid 20s, engaged and expecting his first child. Rory Culkinplays the titular Jack Thurlowe, a husband (webcam wife played by Britt Robertson)and hopeful father returning home for the worst reason. There, he uncovers long-buried secrets and lies within his family history, his parents, his friends and his very identity. Unraveling those mysteries is what this film does best, as each revelation causes the hero to question everything hes believed about his life. Fiction. Beauty Gonzales appears in In My Mothers Skin by Kenneth Dagatan, an official selection of the Midnight section at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. It releases today in cinemas and VOD, but if you want a spoiler-free review before checking it out, read on. Maybe this was intendedto separate fact from fiction or the product of rushing to deliver that a-ha moment. Also, some of thecharacters reactions to the tragic events that are happening all around them come off as fake. Jack Thurlowe receives news that his father has been decapitated in a car crash. Cast: Beauty Gonzalez, Felicity Kyle Napuli, Jasmine Curtis-Smith, James Mavie Estrella, Angeli Bayani. Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Start typing to see results or hit ESC to close. Fiction. When he returns to his childhood home Jack discovers nothing is what it seems. Some of the weird things that Jack sees end up unexplained and used only to elicit scares from the audience. Jack's journey to the truth is fueled by madness, sexuality, hauntings and violence. jack goes home explained spoiler. 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Watch a 2.5-Hour Conversation with Steven Spielberg, Todd Field, Daniels, Martin McDonagh & Joseph Kosinski, Cate Blanchett Dances Through It In Video for Sparks New Single The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte, 5 Must-See Films from Berlin Critics Week 2023, The B-Side Benicio Del Toro (with Chadd Harbold), The 11 Scariest Films of All-Time, According to Martin Scorsese, Berlinale Review: Bas Devos Near-Perfect, Berlinale Review: Jesse Eisenberg-Led Incel Cult Film. Both Jacks parents were involved in a devastating car accident, leaving his father dead and mother Teresa (Lin Shaye)widowed. The film is chiefly set up as a representation of the world through Jacks eyes as these truths flood his outlook, and though some of the visual cues grow repetitive and a bit on-the-nose, Dekker mostly succeeds in creating a world that is bizarre and unstable for hissuffering protagonist. Thatswho Jack is, for better or worse. Find him on Twitter @TracedThurman, Ghostface Has Been Randomly Appearing in Streets Across the Country [Images], Vinegar Syndromes March Releases Include Freeway II Starring Natasha Lyonne on 4K Ultra HD. He will soften when personal joy arrives from a safe place removed from the professional sphere of the daily grind. WORLD CINEMA DRAMATIC COMPETITION However, there are a few issues here and there. Fiction. There are plenty of moments of suspense, terror (attic scene springs to mind) and as I previously mentioned, Lin Shaye is phenomenal in this flick. In its better moments, like the scenes that pit Jack against his mother in increasingly hysterical confrontations, Jack Goes Home suggests the fever-pitched outlandishness of 1970s horror films like Alice, Sweet Alice and The Baby, but more often Dekker resorts to talky, rhythm-less dialogue scenes filmed in bland, undifferentiated close-ups. It certainly creates interest for whatever it is that Dekker has in store for us next. However,his skills as a writer that need some fine-tuning. That being said, understanding that Dekker wrote the film about his depression following his fathers death in 2010 helps to put the film in a better context: this is Dekkers depressed state of mind represented on film. But while the movies artfully made and daringly disturbing, Dekker ultimately overestimates how many sick twists one motion picture needs. Its strong cyclical themes are sometimes lost in the amount of story Dekker stuffs into it, including somewhat random tangents into drug use and a proliferation of profanity. Fiction. Anonymous. One mans pretension is often anothers profundity, after all. There are large chunks of dialogue throughout particularly between Jack and Shanda and Jack and his mother that take heavily analytical and philosophical stances on death, love, and loss. This may be the intent since it is supposed to be a journey into the mind of a mentally disturbed man, but it doesnt feel intentional and the film grows tedious quickly. There isnt a weak link in the bunch, save for maybe Louis Hunter as Jacks flirtatious neighbor Duncan, who seems think he isacting in a soap opera. Much of the dialogue comes off as incredibly pretentious and the quality of the writing does notmerit pretension. Past documentary films include The Dissident, Lucy and Desi, On the Record, and Miss Americana. Cast: Sarah Snook, Lily LaTorre, Damon Herriman, Greta Scacchi. Writer-director Thomas Dekker's "Jack Goes Home" turns one family's dark, twisted past into an invisible monster, haunting the mind of a grief . Cast: Priya Kansara, Ritu Arya, Nimra Bucha, Akshay Khanna, Seraphina Beh, Ella Bruccoleri. With devastating and terrifying results. Ill have to check it out. Would love your thoughts, please comment. With the emotional supportof his best friend Shanda (a barely recognizable Daveigh Chase), Jack must deal with the repercussions of going home. Wolf Garden Prefers a Little Mystery to Big Bad Wolves [Review], Children of the Corn Review: Reboot, Schmeboot, Wreck: A Queer Horror Series With A Lot Of Heart [Review], The Unrated Cut Of M3GAN Is The Same Girl In The Same Wig, We Have A Ghost Is Spooky, Sweet Fun [Review], Cocaine Bear Is One Wild and Bloody Trip [Review]. . PREMIERES While there, he begins uncovering long-buried secrets about his childhood kept from him by his parents. Jack Goes Home is a swirling storm of emotional ravaging thats eventually personified by action, but it never comes together as wicked, cohesive storytelling. Most horror films begin where this one ends, focusing on a monster unleashed after unwittingly spending decades trapped inside his mind. But it quickly becomes clear that his cold exterior is masking a fractured psychology wracked by grief. Summaries. The film premiered at the South by Southwest international film festival and was theatrically released on October 14, 2016. With the arrival of a mysterious new neighbor, Duncan (Louis Hunter), Jack finds audio recordings and video tapes left behind by his father that lead him to question childhood memories and the very foundation of his identity. window.__mirage2 = {petok:"psbHwrxAObzS4YwW.4ATJ7Lu._xdAuyo0LnKho8Hu5Y-1800-0"}; Culkin does his best with the part, bringing an icy intensity to the role that seems partially modeled on Jake Gyllenhaals Nightcrawler performance, but hes saddled with a character that flits through as many permutations as the films tone. Jack soon finds himself haunted by nightly sleepwalking fits and clues that lead to buried pasts, all of which suggest his life is nothing as believed. A look at the Jack Goes Home behind-the-scenes crew and production team. Jack is a troubled character with a sharp, cynical wit and a tortured soul. There probably are some people that will enjoy Jack Goes Home, Im just not one of them.