The Prodigy ** ½ / *****
Directed by: Nicholas
McCarthy.
Written by: Jeff
Buhler.
Starring: Taylor Schilling (Sarah), Peter
Mooney (John), Brittany Allen (Margaret St. James), Jackson Robert Scott
(Miles), Colm Feore (Arthur Jacobson), Olunike Adeliyi (Rebecca), Elisa
Moolecherry (Zoe), Paul Fauteux (Edward Scarka), Paula Boudreau (Dr. Elaine
Strasser).
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The film
opens cutting back and forth between Ohio and Pennsylvania on the same day. In
Ohio, a woman escapes the captivity of a serial killer – Edward Scarka (Paul
Fauteux) – who’s got a thing for hands. The police show up to his isolated
house, guns drawn, and Scarka doesn’t live too long after that. Meanwhile, in
Pennsylvania, Sarah (Taylor Schilling) and John (Peter Mooney) welcome their
only child – Miles (who will be played as an 8-year-old for most of the movie
by Jackson Robert Scott). You can tell what’s going to happen here right? I
mean, there is a reason for all this cross cutting.
The movie
takes a while to catch up to where the audience is after the first scene. Yes,
there does seem to be something wrong with Miles – even as a baby. He is
extremely advanced in some ways, and delayed in others. Perhaps he is somewhere
on the spectrum, but he’s also a genius – maybe. But no one can quite put their
finger on what is wrong with Miles – but when he beats another student with a
wrench, torments a baby sitter, the family dog goes missing, and he starts
speaking in a rare Hungarian dialect in his sleep, they know something is up.
So of course a reincarnation expert (Colm Feore) is brought in to explain what
is happening – and we know he’s right because of that opening scene, but Sarah
refuses to believe for about 20 minutes of runtime, because otherwise you don’t
have much a story.
Everything
about The Prodigy is competently done. Director Nicholas McCarthy knows how to
direct a scare sequence, and create good jump scares, and he does a good job at
that – even if you can tell he’s cribbing from other places. Taylor Schilling
is fine as Sarah – the caring mother who doesn’t want to believe her son could
be evil. Young Jackson Robert Scott has a good creepy stare – and uses it
effectively – and is also good at sounding so innocent that you know he must be
a monster. I do kind of wish they had done something – anything really – with the
John character – who is such a non-entity in the film you may as well have made
Sarah a single mother.
The film
basically does precisely what you think it’s going to do from the get go. It
does it all well enough that you wish the filmmakers had taken a chance – any chance
– to try and bring something different to the mix here. True, no one involved
is a master filmmaker or anything – so it’s not like listening to Glenn Gould
(to bring up a better Colm Feore movie) play chopsticks. But still, listening
to the local piano player at the bar play chopsticks isn’t that impressive
either.
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