Ambition is a 2019 thriller about a young aspiring musician preparing for a competition who gets herself involved in a frightening trap that she has to find her way out of.
The stress of playing the violin at competition level is taking its toll on Jude (Katherine Hughes), a young woman driving herself to earn a ranking in a prestigious music program. Her instructor is Professor Murphy (Bryan Batt), relentless, of course, seeing potential but steadily disappointed. That’s because his best pupil, a girl named Emily Foster (Jordan Salmon), considered by most who knew her to be a rising star, recently died, though there is question if she fell, jumped, or was pushed off the roof of a tall building. Meanwhile, Jude begins to crack, fearing that she now is targeted by a killer, who may or may not be connected to Emily.
Pick any movie about a talented musician and nine times out of ten, it’s about the unbearable pressure to excel, with demanding instructors putting way too much weight on a young star trying to keep their head above water. The twist here is an extra layer of impending murder, with director Robert Shaye, who is most notable for his producing credits on the Nightmare on Elm Street and Lord of the Rings franchises, dipping into the horror well and pulling out a few standards in propping up this mostly passable but ultimately good looking generic thriller.
That means lots of see-through jump scares and plenty of in-movie references with the cast playing games of ‘guess the movie line’ as they all hang out in a rented house. They include Jude, who lives with her roomates Sarah (Sonoya Mizuno), an artist with more sex on her mind than sculpting (though even that features nods to getting laid), and Veronica (Kyanna Simone Simpson), a quiet but intelligent girl with plans to be an architect, along with neighbors Steve (Dylan McNamara), a laid back pot smoking movie buff and his new roomie Dave (Giles Matthey), a British musician with a dog. There’s also Jude’s boyfriend Ben (John Kroft), who lives out of town, the two communicating by video chat, though his surprise return to the house is just that, leading to further complications.
The problem with Ambition lies with is sterility. While the premise is solid and Shaye, who puts his experience to good use in presenting it well, the execution is simply too stale to have any impact. None of these people are the least bit believable and their conversations are even less so, the filmmakers more interested in creating tension than giving it any legitimacy, working to make this a quasi-noir-ish thriller without the meat of interesting characters. It starts with Foster’s demise and then uses that tragedy as a benchmark for where we expect Jude to follow, and as clues mount, there is some curiosity in seeing just how all the pieces fit together, the twists there but not all that heavy. Red herrings are pointedly made obvious as Shaye works towards a Hitchcockian (and decidedly Brian De Palma) finale, using clever imagery and an excellent moody score by Wlad Marhulets to try and flavor this with some suspense but the dots don’t connect so well considering all the DNA behind this. It’s a little frustrating with so much sitting right there ready to make this hit the notes intended.