Alone With You (2021) Review

As she awaits the return of girlfriend Simone (Emma Myles) from an assignment, Charlie (Emily Bennett, who also co-wrote and co-directed with Justin Brooks) is doing her best to make sure everything is exactly right for a romantic homecoming. Those plans begin to fall apart when a dodgy door lock means that Emily is trapped, however temporary that may be, in their Brooklyn apartment until those Maintenance folks can come out and fix it.

Not only that, but it also appears as though Simone has dropped out of contact despite the fact that her flight has landed a while back and that she should be home. At least Emily isn’t hearing weird noises around the place and catching glimpses of unsettling visions in the darkest of corners. Oh, hold on, she is…

A movie about increasingly creepy things happening to a person alone in an apartment is nothing new but Alone With You doesn’t waste much time at all in setting up its central mystery and from then on there’s a certain amount of grim fun to be had in attempting to deduce exactly what is going on. Is the house haunted? Is Emily losing her grip on reality? Is it both? Is it neither?

As to the potential supernatural element, that’s dealt with in a way which will feel familiar to fans of the genre. Boards creek, screens pixelate, faces warp and, despite some long sequences featuring our main protagonist wandering the place alone, the unsettling atmosphere is generally sustained. It also helps that there’s a load of mannequins covered with white sheets in one room, which would be scary in bright sunshine let alone in the dimmest of illuminations.

It also helps the piece immensely that Emily Bennett’s performance in the lead role is pitched at the right level. She’s expressive without launching into instant hysterics as soon as the weird stuff begins to happen and the gradual degradation of her psyche is nicely handled. Bennett also gives more than a hint that Charlie is keeping something from the audience – and potentially herself – which is just under that loyal, eager to please surface.

The production also plays a couple of absolute blinders as far as the supporting cast goes, notably Dora Madison as Charlie’s sweary, sassy, hedonistic friend Thea and genre icon Barbara Crampton as Charlie’s morally upstanding mother. Both are seen only on video calls but their skills as performers shine through. Even in relatively small roles, neither comes close to, ahem, phoning it in, Crampton in particular relishing her few minutes as she tries – and fails – to come to terms with her daughter’s same-sex relationship and New York lifestyle.

A fine balance is struck between dropping the requisite number of hints and keeping the proceedings vague enough before the final act’s series of reveals. At well under the ninety-minute mark, Alone With You is fully aware of the breaking point associated with a story that’s mostly a single character and a single location. Flashbacks are thrown into the mix but these inform the ongoing tale rather than pad it out.

Much of the horror relies on suggestion and atmosphere, although there are bursts of blood and gore which startle because of the restraint shown elsewhere. This is a film where you’re watching the background almost as much as what’s going on front and centre and there’s a lovely moment involving a photograph which is all the better for it not being accompanied with a crash of music or the cinematography nudging you towards that part of the frame.

With limited sets and performers, Alone With You bears the hallmarks of so many lockdown-inflected productions but the quality of its performances and its eerie ambience discern it from a great deal of the pack. It’s a slow burn but very little of the movie feels like it’s treading water and the resolution, although not entirely unexpected, is carried off with the same, slightly skewed vision as the twists and turns preceding it.

Alone With You takes familiar trappings and imparts its own odd brand of spin and even if you’ve guessed what’s been going on before the story finally shows its hand, there are enough seeds of doubt sown to make the viewer regularly question both their own and Charlie’s interpretation of the clues. The Bennett/Brooks writing/direction team has created an atmosphere and intriguing chiller that’s eminently watchable and brings a few surprising moments of genuine, well-crafted fear.

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