Frightfest Breakdown 6 - The I Inside

We lucky viewers at Frightfest 2004 have got this several months ahead of its 2005 UK screen debut. The I Inside, starring Ryan Phillippe, Piper Perabo, Sarah Polley and Stephen Rea, comes from the pen of Identity scribe Michael Cooney and is based upon his play Point of Death, so twists in the tale come as standard, and it is directed by German director Roland Suso Richter, who directed an excellent film called The Tunnel a few years back.

The basic premise of the story has Simon Cable (Phillippe) waking up in 2002 in a hospital bed after a near-death experience with no memory of anything that has occurred within the last 2 years. He has forgotten his wife, Anna (Piper Perabo), as well as everything else that has happened since he was last admitted to the hospital two years previous. As his memory returns he begins flitting between the years 2002 and 2000, the tale growing ever more entangled and dark as Simon moves further into the recesses of his memory. And, yes, it has the obligatory twist or two.

Although some of my fellow viewers had a poke at this film for copying several other twisty tales I thought it was rather good. A film like this is only as good as its twist and the internal logic behind that twist. For instance, the twist in Switchblade Romance stinks because the internal logic just makes no sense, it asks us to suspend too much disbelief. Likewise, Jacob's Ladder's end sucks because it appears to be some kind of tacked-on ending that, again, takes our suspension of disbelief too far. I personally think that The I Inside judges its internal logic well. I did manage to guess the twist before the end; though the end wasn't telegraphed it did seem to be the most logical explanation. However, despite my guesswork, I still enjoyed the film: it has a lot of plus points.

Ryan Phillippe, after abandoning his early career as a vacuous pretty boy, continues the upward trajectory he began with Way of the Gun and Igby Goes Down; he carries the film well and shows a range that in the days of 54 and I Know What You Did Last Summer would have been entirely beyond him. Piper Perabo, in what is a dual role of sorts, does an excellent job, suggesting there is a future for her beyond the sexy roles that she has generally been typecast into. Stephen Rea and Sarah Polley are very good, but does this surprise anybody? Both actors are renowned for their reliability and versatility. Cooney's screenplay gives the cast some good lines to chew on and spit out and the internal logic of the twist works, however the film does jump timeframes a little too much and I did see the twist coming, although I have seen countless films of this kind and I only saw it coming towards the end. Richter directs his actors well, eliciting good performances out of the entire cast, in particular some of the support players like Stephen Lang, as a heart patient, and Stephen Graham, as a ward nurse. Richter also keeps the momentum going for most of the film, and it is only towards the end that the pace and interest begins to flag. As American debuts go for a foreign director this is a confident one. The film has a slightly washed out gritty feel to it, courtesy of Martin Langer; who also worked with Richter on The Tunnel. The editing, by Chris Blunden and Jonathan Rudd, is also worthy of note, particularly the way it juggles the timeframes and the segues between them.

This film deserves an audience. If it is marketed the right way it might become a sleeper hit, though it isn't quite good enough to warrant anything like blockbuster status. And, Christ, if a fucking piece of kangaroo shit like Van Helsing can make over a hundred million then a decent film like this should be able to make a dollar or two. And whilst it isn't going to figure in my top ten for the year, it is a well made piece of filmmaking with some respect for its viewers and a degree of intelligence above and beyond your average Hollywood schlock.