‘Dragonfly’ Review: Andrea Riseborovgh and Brenda Blethyn Dazzle in A BLEAK British Shocker

It’s Always Risky to Mix Genres, But Some Movies Pull Off The Trick With More Skill Than Oters. DragonflyWHICH HAD ITS WORLD Premiere This Week in Tribeca, Starts As An Intimate Character Drama, with Two Oscar-Nominated British Actresses-Brenda Blethyn andrea-andrea Riseoubor. (They wre given a joint acting by the one of the juries at the Festival. Turns The Movie Closer to the Horror Genre, with A Blood-Splattered Finale. Reactions Will Surely Be Mixed About this Surprise Tonal Shift, But There Is No Doubt The Film Sticks in the Memory.

Blethyn Plays Elsie, An Elderly Woman Living in A DRAB HOUSING COMPLEX AND TENDED TO BY CAREGIVERS WHO DO The BARE MINIMUM TO MEET HER NEEDS. HER NEXT DOOR NEGHBOR COLLEEN (Riseborovgh) Sense Elsie May Require Extra Help and Triers to Intercede, Offering to Do Shopping and Cleling. Elsie’s Son John (Jason Watkins) Makes Occasional Appeaarans and Sems Suspicious of Colleen, But He Clearly Does Not Wake on Much of a Caretaking Role Himesel.

The Friendship Between the Two Neighbors Makes US Uncomfortable from the Start, and the Presance of Colleen’s Large, Menacing Dog Dos Not Calm Our Fears. WHEN ELSIE GIVES COLLEEN MONEY to DO SOME EXTRA SHOPPING FOR HER, WE CAN SENSE COLLEEN MAY HAVE MOTIVES BEYOND Pure ALTRUISM IN LOOKING AFTER HER NEGHBOR.

The first part of the movie, sketching in the friendship, is paced a tad toply, but we are aware that situation is unstable and the Two Actresses Help to KEEP US RIVETED. Blethyn Earns Our Sympathy Without Begging for It, and Riseborow Is Always Commanding. HER SURPRISE Oscar Nomination for To leslie A Couple of Years Ago, Aside from Being The Result of Savvy Campaigning, Was Confirmation of the Skill that She was Demonstrated over the Last Decade. (Her Outstanding Performance in A Recent Masterpiece Theater Production, Alice & Jackin WHICH she costarred with Domhnall Gleeson, ALSO WAS EVIDENCE OF HER Vigor and Versatility.)

The Script for Dragonfly Could have Provides A Bit More Background for Colleen. We Can Understand that Williams Didn’t Want to Construct A Labored Psychiatric Case Study, But He Might Have Sketched In More of Her History to Prepare Us. That includes a couple of gotcha shock moments that had the tribeca audience Literally gasping and screaming.

Is this Tonal Swerve A Little Gimmicky? Probably, and The Film Will No Be To Everyone’s Taste. But It is a SkillFully rendered Exercise in Terror. Williams have Studied a Couple of Hitchcock Movies, and HE HAS Absorbed Sly Lessons from The Master.

This is A Slight Film, But The Jolts Do Stay with You, and the Two Stars Offer A Humanity That Many Horror Movies Lack. Some Smart Distributor Should Snap It Up.