Tuesday, September 12, 2023

King Tide (2023) Toronto 2023


After a storm a small town isolated on a distant island finds a baby under a capsized boat. The child has miraculous powers and can heal anyone she is near. Ten years on, an unexpected event forces the island to consider if they should keep themselves and the girl isolated or if she should be brought into the world. The discussion threatens to tear the once closely knit community apart.

For the most part I really liked KING TIDE. It’s a film with a dynamite sense of place and  solid cast. We are on an island in the middle of the sea. You can almost smell the sea breeze. It is a film that has a lot going on and asks us to ponder some heady subjects. It is for the most part a solid drama.

The place where the film gets in trouble and which keeps me from truly loving the film is in the tone of the film. From the opening frame to the last the film is dripping with the sense of tragedy. The framing the shots and especially the score push the film into a dark place from the beginning. The trip down the path is set at the outset with , the tone and the mood so the result is the story doesn’t build to anything. We know where this story stands. I knew things were not going to be happy.

Does it make it a bad film? No, but a film should be a journey that surprises us where it ends. KING TIDE signals where we are going to be at the end and it takes some of the edge off.

Still what is here is really good and I recommend it.

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