We use alone time to recalibrate and reset. It’s when we can parse our thoughts and memories into their proper places and make actual sense of things. But there are times when solitude feels like a straight jacket—especially when it’s used to escape from something awful. Even if you outrun the hammer of consequences, guilt will always be nipping at your heels. Indianna Bell and Josiah Allen’s You’ll Never Find Me has a relatively simple setting with a particular expertise in the story to keep things interesting. We first see a rugged man named Patrick (Brendan Rock) sitting alone at a small dinner table tucked away in his trailer park home. On this rather stormy night, Patrick seems to be wrestling with something or skittish at the possibility someone might visit him. Who would do that at 2 am in the morning, and why is he still awake?
As fate would have it, there’s a frantic knock on the door. On the other side is a woman (played by Jordan Cowan), drenched and needing a phone to get to wherever she’s staying. It seems like a simple solution, but it is storming considerably. Perhaps she can wait it out; however, it’s with a man to whom she has no idea if his intentions are good or bad. There is a phone, but it’s a pay phone, and it just so happens to be on another side of a locked gate. Never to fear, Patrick offers to take her there because he’s the only one with the key. If you think that’s a little shady, well, it is. Especially when he keeps flip-flopping on the thought process of letting her go and insisting that the woman stay with random acts of kindness. There’s an offering to use a shower (why is the latch to the bathroom broken?), food and drink (could it be poisoned?), and even clothing (that may or may not have been someone else’s).
Bell’s story and Maxx Corkindale’s direct camera style make it so that the viewer feels the overpowering aura of paranoia both characters exude. While the woman is talking, there are often shots framing Patrick in the dark or with imagery that could be interpreted as old wounds from misdeeds. On the flip side, you can see how uncomfortable Cowan’s facial expressions are as Patrick goes on tangents that make him seem unruly under the kind and generous surface he’s portrayed. The mobile home is almost an additional character in how it creaks and contorts with the storm as revelations come to the surface. We are provided with a lot of ammo as to why we should not trust Patrick, but Bell and Allen give some equal reason to question the woman’s origins. Out of all the homes, why is it that she comes to this one? Is it a little peculiar that she states she was swimming so late at night at the beach and unconsciously tweaks the story afterward?
It’s a cat-and-mouse game that could have the potential to explode into something darker at any time throughout the narrative. While a quick move to the furious might be a usual way, You’ll Never Find Me shows restraint like an old, gothic short story — simply because it’s confident in the latitude of the ride it wants to take you on. Thrillers don’t have to be so complicated to be compelling. Sometimes, all you need is a defined space, a thunderstorm, and a couple of characters with things to hide cards at a poker table.
Photo Credit: Shudder
