Some movies are intentionally mind-blowing. Knowing the kind of movies I like, a friend suggested Resolution with the enticing note that it is free on Amazon Prime. Since anything free is worth saving up for, and since I was having trouble staying awake on a warm, wet Sunday afternoon when the lawn couldn’t be mowed, I gave it a try. Even after it was over I wasn’t sure what I’d seen, but I was glad that I had. Part of the draw is how convincing the acting is. Another is the bizarre nature of the threats. Like Sinister (also released in 2012), Resolution involves found media that tell a disturbing story. Only in the case of Resolution it’s set in a remote part of an Indian reservation and it involves a drug addict and his friend who’s attempting an intervention.
With the addict handcuffed to a pipe, his rescuer encounters a strange set of people in the area and has bizarre media delivered to him by an unknown party. In fact, he goes to his friend because of a video emailed to him by the addict. Only the addict didn’t send it. The media (records, color slides, video tapes, computer files) tell increasingly strange stories until the media also begin to show the two friends almost instantaneously. A stoned French researcher tells the rescuer that there might be some time-space dislocation here, or there may be a monster. Reluctant to release the addict until he has several days to get the drugs out of his system, the friend attempts to figure out what all this means. Then the media begin to show their short-term future.
I won’t say how it ends, but I will say that the title Resolution is well-chosen. This is a very creepy movie. A remote location where things just don’t seem right and the conviction that just a few days will save a friend’s life but only if they stay in place is a great concept. In many ways it’s a movie about stories. The resolution is the end of the story and that’s something that’s successfully kept up in the air throughout. Anyone who writes stories knows the feeling of writing yourself into a corner. Playing around with space-time opens up possibilities, however, corners or not. I can’t say that I understood everything that was going on here, but it was edgy enough to keep me alert, even on a muggy, drowsy Sunday afternoon.
