SESSION 9
Reviewed by Harvey Karten USA Films Director: Brad Anderson Writer: Brad Anderson, Stephen Gevedon Cast: David Caruso, Josh Lucas, Peter Mullan, Steven Gevedon, Brendan Sexton III, Paul Guilfoyle
The blocks surrounding my apartment complex are undergoing gobs of construction. The Emmanuel Cellar Federal Building across the street was demolished to make way for a larger courthouse; Polytechnic University is making good use of a multimillion dollar bequest the college recently received to put up a dorm and an entirely new principal structure; a Department of Social Services office has been demolished to make room for who know what. As I pass these buildings I see the workmen joking with one another, sending out for coffee and doughnuts, ogling the women passersby and talking about the latest game they saw the other day on their 50-inch projection TVS. Some workers look like the stereotypical all-American, others are remarkably short to be doing this heavy-duty labor. Most of all everyone looks so NORMAL. Ah, but what goes on underneath the wholesome looks, the friendly chatter, the macho bluster? Is Cunningham on the outs with his wife? Did Klein just get dumped by his girl friend? Do McGraw and Bradley hate each other so much that at least one of them would like to shove the other from the scaffold? There are forty or fifty stories up there on the unfinished eighth floor of this federal building as each member of the construction crew does his best to put on a cheerful face, get the job done, and take home a good paycheck.
"Session 9" has the makings of such a tale, but what gives Brad Anderson's piece its feeling of dread--a sensation that increases steadily, incrementally until the doozy of a payoff--is that the construction team depicted are working inside a huge asylum for the insane at Danvers, Massachusetts, which had been abandoned in 1985 when the federal government and various states determined to cut the budget and release what were considered harmless to themselves and others. Filmed by Uta Briesewitz with one of those cool, new digital cameras that knock out 24 frames per second just like film (so you'd scarcely know the difference) and crisply edited by the director, "Session 9" is what a horror movie should be about. No teens getting impaled on meathooks, no false alarms that cause you to hold your breath for a second only to realize that it's just young Michael coming up from behind and tapping Susan on the shoulder. And happily "Session 9" takes itself with deadly seriousness. In other words this is in no way "Scream" or the most detestable of the recent mock-slasher fare, "Scary Movie 2." Brad Anderson has surrounded himself with a crackerjack crew of performers playing a team of asbestos removers who are working against the clock to get rid of all the junk in the former looney bin in just a week rather than in the usual three so that they can collect a fat bonus promised to them by the city.
For purposes of a review it doesn't hurt to know right off that each of the workers has a dark side, the potential to do bad things or to have criminal acts performed against him. Phil (David Caruso) lost a girl friend to a fellow worker on the crew, Hank (Josh Lucas) and wants to fire him from the start but is prevented from doing so by his partner, Gordon (Peter Mullan)--who is currently on the outs with his wife, living in a motel, and desperately trying to reach her on a cell phone to make up with her. Jeff (Brendan Sexton III) is the kid of the outfit who got the job from his uncle Gordon, but he is burdened with nyctophobia. He has fear of darkness--and you know what sort of horror this can lead scripter Brad Anderson to hand to him during the week of the project. Hank tempts the fates by razzing Phil on the latter's loss of a girl friend, and probably speaks for the entire crew when he says that everyone there would rather be doing something else. Of all the members of the team, Mike (Stephen Gevedon-- who co-scripted the piece)--is the bright one, the guy who dropped out of law school and simply does not belong in this blue-collar atmosphere. His curiosity gets the best of him. Despite the deadline, he becomes obsessed with a series of tapes he finds from the 1980's--a psychotherapist's recording of nine sessions conducted with a person afflicted with multiple personality disorder. Things becoming increasingly hairy partly because of the secrets that lie within the asbestos-choked walls of the Danville asylum, more because of the friction that develops increasingly among the workers--as director Anderson holds the audience in his grip by upping the ante as the hours tick away.
The year 1999 brought us the superb ghost story, M. Night Shyamalan's "The Sixth Sense," which meets its match this year with Alejandro Amenabar's terminally spooky "The Others," starring Nicole Kidman as a mother of two who becomes increasingly off kilter as she witnesses invisible people opening and closing doors in her large home while an equally unseen person performs on the piano. "Session 9" is right up there with those dread-inspiring works. As Anderson cuts from the laborers to the labyrinthine areas of the serpentine building, we watch each begin to chat normally as co-workers are wont to do everywhere, then get increasingly paranoid, even off the wall in two cases. But unlike "The Sixth Sense," "Session 9" deals not so much with demons who lie outside the perimeter but with the devils who inhabit the minds of the people racing to complete a job. In that regard, Anderson's picture is more like Roman Polanski's 1965 masterwork "Repulsion," a psychological shocker depicting the deterioration of a repressed girl left alone for days in her sister's apartment. The men here may not be alone, but like all of us, they are to an extent isolated in their own psyches. That is what gives "Session 9" its believability, and most of all, its distinct relevance to each of us sitting in the audience.
Not Yet Rated. Running time: 100 minutes. (C) 2001 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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