THE BLOCK ISLAND SOUND (2020)

Studio:      Hood River Entertainment
Director:    The McManus Brothers
Writer:      The McManus Brothers
Producer:  Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus, Andrew van den Houten, Ashleigh Snead
Stars:     Michaela McManus, Chris Sheffield, Neville Archambault, Ryan O’Flanagan, Matilda Lawler, Jeremy Holm, Jim Cummings

Review Score:

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Summary:

An estranged family comes together when a mysterious force lurking off the coast of their small town causes a series of strange events.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Fisherman Tom Lynch wakes up adrift at sea holding an empty dog leash with no memory of what happened. Later, Tom’s son Harry finds Tom standing entranced over a neighbor’s dog. Harry worries again the next morning when Tom takes out the boat without telling Harry and returns in another state of confusion.

Tom’s estranged daughter Audry returns to Block Island as an EPA analyst on an assignment to investigate several tons of dead fish strangely washing ashore. Audry brings her young daughter Emily and her coworker Paul. Audry and Emily stay with Tom despite Audry’s contentious relationship with her brother Harry.

Audry notices Tom standing entranced at the kitchen window. Harry claims nothing is wrong with their father’s behavior. Tom seemingly attacks Emily during the night, but Tom and Harry both insist Emily merely had a nightmare that caused her to scream.

Harry and Audry discover their father missing the next morning. The siblings subsequently find Tom’s ransacked boat drifting at sea. The boat’s radio emits an unsettling groaning noise. Police Chief Rogers finds no signs of foul play to warrant an investigation, which angers Harry.

Harry decides to investigate the area where Tom’s boat was found on his own. Harry hears the gurgling noise again as a dark cloud forms around him underwater. Harry inexplicably wakes up on the boat with bloodshot eyes and surrounded by dead fish. Harry dismisses Audry’s growing concern for his wellbeing.

Tom’s dead body washes ashore with bruising and head trauma, fueling Harry’s suspicion that something sinister happened. Harry’s conspiracy theorist friend Dale claims Tom’s death is connected to the dead fish as well as worldwide reports of large bird flocks falling from the sky. Harry researches Dale’s claims and connects a line moving through the world’s water. Harry also has a disturbing dream where he coughs up worms and sees his dead father reflected in the mirror.

Harry spaces out while seeing a vision of his father at a grocery store. Entranced the same way Tom used to be, Harry suddenly feels compelled to exit with a shopping cart overflowing with food. A clerk breaks Harry out of his trance.

Harry arrives at his father’s wake empty-handed. Harry gets into a fistfight with his father’s accusatory friend Steve and briefly ends up in jail.

At night, Harry drags all of the food out of his fridge. Harry wakes up drifting in the boat with no recollection of what happened. Harry’s other sister Jen and Audry continue bemoaning their brother’s destructive behavior while cleaning the mess he left in the kitchen.

Audry and Paul investigate dead birds found all over a beach.

After dropping off his sister Jen, Harry encounters a deer in the road. Static suddenly overtakes the radio. A vision of Tom groans the word “deer.” Entranced, Harry accelerates into the animal. He then sails out to sea with the deer.

Officer McGarry notices Harry’s damaged truck in the morning. McGarry warns both Harry and Audry about Harry posing a danger.

Harry tells Audry he wasn’t driving drunk. Harry confesses that Tom was losing his mind and Harry was trying to protect him. Harry now worries the same thing is happening to him.

Harry gets tested for dementia. Suspecting Harry may have electromagnetic sensitivity, Dr. Koch refers Harry to Kurt, a man in a similar situation who now lives as an isolated Luddite, for advice. Harry dismisses the doctor’s diagnosis, but Audry takes Kurt’s contact information.

Harry feels strangely drawn to the beach location where the dead birds were discovered. Harry finds Dale camping there. Dale gives Harry a collection of research on paranormal activity. Harry downplays Dale’s beliefs, but concludes something is wrong with the island and is having an unknown effect on him.

After dreaming of Tom again, Harry throws every piece of electronic equipment out of the house. While outside, Harry sees a vision of Tom growling the word “dog.” Entranced again, Harry kills the neighbor’s dog and brings it out onto the water. When he arrives at the spot where Tom vanished, gravity distorts as everything not tied down rises into the air, including Harry. Everything eventually comes crashing back down. Harry wakes up in the morning holding an empty leash. Upon returning home, Harry tells Audry he had nothing to do with the dog’s disappearance, even though she sees paw scratches on his arms.

Audry leaves Paul to babysit Emily while she visits Kurt. Audry asks Kurt about her brother’s strange blackouts. Kurt becomes agitated. Kurt warns Audry to get Harry away from Block Island before he hurts someone. Kurt cryptically claims “they” are communicating with Harry and using him as a vessel by making him see things so he brings them whatever they want. Thinking Kurt is crazy, Audry hurriedly drives off after Kurt grabs her while revealing he tried to abduct a homeless woman. Kurt insists “they” want to know what makes humans tick by figuratively ripping people open and stitching them back together.

Harry leaves the house to escape a vision of Tom repeating the word “girl” while standing behind Emily. Visions and groaning noises continue as Harry crashes his car to avoid injuring and abducting a female jogger in the road. Unable to maintain control of his mind, Harry returns home for Emily.

Audry returns to find Paul unconscious and Harry forcing Emily onto the boat. Audry jumps aboard. Unable to break her brother’s trance, Audry protects Emily. When they arrive at the levitation point, everything rises into the air before eventually crashing back down.

Paul and Chief Rogers discover the derelict boat in the morning, but only find Emily aboard. However, Audry later drops back into the water unexpectedly and alone.

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Review:

Researchers routinely remove animals from their natural habitats for scientific studies. Objectives are often based on species preservation, environmental conservation, or other benevolent intentions to protect, evolve, and better understand nature.

What if extraterrestrial or paranormal entities regard humans the same way? What if equivalent experimentation necessitates plucking a person off the planet for observation or to further a greater goal beyond the limits of our comprehension? When we fulfill our unknown purpose, we might then be dropped back where we came from with no more of an idea about what happened than a trout has after a fisherman throws it back into the water.

That’s one of the concepts behind “The Block Island Sound.” Tom has been waking from random trances recently to find himself on his boat, staring at his neighbor’s dog, or absent-mindedly overfilling a water pitcher with no recollection of the immediately preceding minutes. Tom’s son Harry doesn’t want to admit his father might be developing dementia. Harry already lost his mother and can’t stand to lose his other parent too, so he chalks up Tom’s blackouts to sleepwalking and momentary confusion.

Coincidentally, Harry’s estranged sister Audry happens to be back in the area on an EPA assignment to investigate several tons of dead fish that have been washing ashore. If Harry’s Weekly World News-reading friend Dale is to be believed, the fish connect to flocks of dead birds that have been dropping all over the world. Something strange certainly appears to be going on and Block Island could be sitting on an epicenter.

Harry isn’t sure what to think until he starts suffering from sudden trances similar to Tom’s. Suspicions that alcoholism could be to blame fan the flames of contention that already smolder between Harry and Audry. Family ties continue cracking as the mystery mounts, with Tom and Harry’s increasingly bizarre behavior possibly putting Audry’s young daughter in danger from whatever invisible monster may be manipulating the two men’s minds.

“The Block Island Sound” plays like how a conversational Edward Burns movie might be if psychological suspense darkened that brand of homespun indie atmosphere. Locations include a neighborhood bar, a greasy spoon diner, and a grocery store. Everyday faces feature emotionally distant siblings, vague love interests, and a police chief who knows everyone’s first name. Block Island has a vibrant working class buzz and follows the grounded drama regularly found in small town territory, but it’s sprayed with a translucent patina of supernatural color.

Troubled relationships and personal struggles don’t completely dominate the tone. As with their excellent work producing and writing smart shows such as “American Vandal” and “Cobra Kai,” brothers Kevin and Matthew McManus have a knack for slipping in sharp humor that can cut without leaving a conspicuous blood trail. Their comedy steams and evaporates without calling undue attention to itself. “The Block Island Sound” employs this technique well. In one exchange, Audry’s little daughter follows up Harry’s flippant drug remark by innocently asking, “what’s crack?” Without skipping a beat, her oblivious uncle casually comments, “it’s like cocaine but you can smoke it.”

Quick hits like these provide pepper so dialogue never becomes dried out by exposition. Jim Cummings gets to chew on a bigger bite of comic relief as conspiracy kook Dale. In keeping with the snark’s subtlety, Cummings refrains from going full “Lone Gunmen” with a tinfoil hat-wearer’s tics. He just rides a light wave of affable oddness to make the characterization cute. Even tightly-wound Harry, played by Matthew Modine and Ron Howard lovechild Chris Sheffield, can’t unleash his anger when Dale piles on another “how you holding up?” in the wake of a devastating tragedy. Harry knows Dale’s awkwardness just gets in the way of good intentions.

Understated nuances help “The Block Island Sound’s” ordinary people become sympathetic personalities. As Audry, Michaela McManus doesn’t have any big blowout breakdowns or similar scenes typically seen in awards ceremony clips. She simply embodies a solid single mother who is believably blue collar. Sharing that trait with her castmates creates a roster of relatable folks who magnetize engagement instead of uncoupling attention spans with their orchestrated averageness.

Movies where people frequently fall into trances usually end up echoing the sleepiness of their dreamy descents into gradual madness. “The Block Island Sound” moves with a soft step, but it’s a slow burn whose quiet tension actually burns. It’s only ambiguous enough to frustrate those who want a definitive destination at the end of the journey, which is somewhere “The Block Island Sound” doesn’t take us. Much of the personal drama isn’t resolved either. But is it ever fully sorted in real life? That seems to be one of the film’s thematic suggestions.

“The Block Island Sound” is about the moves we are willing to make to sidestep harsh truths, to save our loved ones, and to ignore the consequences of uncomfortable realities. The film doesn’t get in the viewer’s face with its philosophizing. It’s there to peel at if the various conflicts speak to you. If they don’t, then interest is liable to get lost.

Light sways into cerebral subject matter don’t swing drastically. A primarily to-the-point approach remains rooted in straightforwardness. Although not as paranoid, “The Block Island Sound’s” eerie style would pair well with something like “They Look Like People” (review here). It’s not the sort of thriller that scorches with white-hot heat. But it’s good at being gripping while only using a limited box of indie filmmaking tools.

Review Score: 75

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