What Keeps You Alive is a 2018 thriller set in the remote mountains where venomous betrayals engulf a female married couple attempting to celebrate their one-year anniversary.
Secrets buried in the past are a staple in the movies, the unearthing of such the catalyst for what seems an entire genre of film. What’s so intriguing about these movies are how we can so easily relate, perhaps not always on the same scale, but to some degree the idea of playing ‘what if?’ with our own scenarios feeding the fun. Now comes writer/director Colin Minihan‘s latest chiller, What Keeps You Alive, a tightly-constructed piece of paranoia that hinges on lies and betrayal, and while it might hold to a few steadfast conventions, is nonetheless a terrific little ride with some unsettlingly bite.
Jules (Brittany Allen) and Jackie (Hannah Emily Anderson) are a seemingly happily married couple, about to celebrate their first anniversary. To do so, the young women head to an isolated cabin near a lake in the woods where Jackie used to holiday when she was a child. Upon arriving, a very important question is asked, one with significant impact as the plot unfolds. Soon, the girls meet Sarah (Martha MacIsaac), a childhood friend of Jackie’s living across the lake with whom she shares a traumatic history. Things grow out of sorts from there though as things learned by Jules have her questioning who her wife is, and then, it all goes south when she is forced to try and stay alive after it seems there was reason why she was brought here in the first place.
You’ll notice that I’m leaving much of the description rather ambiguous, a purposeful effort on my part to avoid the numerous spoilers nearly any summary of this simple yet harrowing Jack-in-the-Box thriller is all out about. Minihan’s very careful with his story having just about every line of dialogue bristle with consequence, his economy of words and space leaving us without much breathing space as it remains in high gear throughout. Using a classic three-part narrative, it’s so cleanly put together, it’s characters so deliberately established, the film is a kind of marvel for how it pulls off so much with so little. Sure, there are plenty of old hats in the ring, the film forced to comply for the audiences sake, yet kudos must be given simply for the effort.
What Keeps You Alive best handles its suspense, the steady reveal of misinformation and outright lies the source for most of the tension, while Jules struggles with an incident that is life threatening. Out in the wilds, she spirals into a dark new world that not just sheds but rather guts the life she thought she was living, with Jackie morphing into a whole different persona. As such, with a few hard to watch moments and more, certainly Minihan’s film comes packed ready for argument, the movie sure to be divicise. He sometimes explores his style a little too deeply and can get a little excessive, but this rarely strips power from the punches he’s trying to land.
A small production, this is still a well-made and acted potboiler with several sharp twists that do the trick, driving to an over-the-top finale that might not entirely satisfy, but like the old adage says, it’s the journey not the destination. Highly-recommended.