Hold The Dark is a 2018 adventure set after the deaths of three children suspected to be killed by wolves, and a writer hired to track down and locate a missing son in the Alaskan wilderness.
It’s a natural part of the game so to speak that we are judged by what we’ve already done, and so it is with filmmakers who are in a constant battle to either rise up from past ‘failures’ or outdo the greatness they’ve already achieved. So it is with director Jeremy Saulnier, whose earlier films, including Blue Ruin and Green Room are savagely dark, electrifying works that cleanly separate themselves from the pack. Thus, it’s a little unfair to perhaps hold his latest, Hold The Dark, up to the same light, but expectations are nonetheless unavoidable. Equipping some of the same tactics he’s employed well before, Hold The Dark is certainly a stunning visual experience but is unfortunately a little too cold to strike as I hoped it could.
Medora Sloane (Riley Keough) lives in the far reaches of Alaska, snowbound and surrounded by vast swaths of forest. The small settlement she is part of has of late been struck by tragedy, with two young children carried off by hungry wolves. Now, she claims her own small boy has fallen to the same fate, and with her husband Vernon (Alexander Skarsgard) serving overseas, she calls in noted animal advocate Dr. Russell Core (Jeffrey Wright) for help, hoping he will track and kill the beast. However, things are not what they seem, and when Vernon returns, the pair disappear and the hunt shifts from tracking wolves to solving a disturbing mystery in the hollows of the Alaskan frontier.
Based on the book of the same name by William Giraldi, Hold The Dark begins with a provocative premise, even it might harken back a bit to the well-covered story of the dingoes who ran off with a baby. Saulnier is a master at setting mood and his often effective choice in letting imagery tell the story rather than words is used well in establishing where we are and why, even as it momentarily shifts to the Middle East in a shattering series of events with Vernon. His story right there would have been fuel enough for a feature length film, but this is more about Core, who is never quite fleshed out enough to draw us all the way in. Nor are those he hunts.
Wright is well cast and carries whatever burdens straddling the aging naturalist to dark degrees, which is a theme Saulnier sticks to often in his films, though it becomes almost oppressive here. Core, Vernon, and especially Sloane, are entirely engematic, tortured and lost, leaving the audience with little room to feel empathy. Saulnier stages some exhilarating moments, with a harrowing gunfight and the threat of death ’round every corner yet it remains difficult to get bound to any of it, even if it’s delivered with exceptional skill.
Hold the Dark is a tricky labyrinth of tricks and traps, one that strokes at suspense throughout, yet somehow can’t find a way to bring it any sense of completion. I can’t deny there were moments when I felt it found its footing, and sunk a little deeper into uncovering its truths but it’s for these same reasons that never pay off which keep this effort shy of hitting the mark.