Antlers

Directed by Scott Cooper, Antlers follows small-town teacher Julia Meadows (Keri Russell) as she sets out to solve the mystery behind one of her students’ bizarre behavior and less-than-ideal home life. There’s little doubt that Antlers ultimately fares best in its deliberate yet promising opening stretch, as Cooper effectively kicks the proceedings off with a pre-credits sequence that seems to promise a grim, disturbing little horror movie – with the compelling feel heightened by Florian Hoffmeister’s atmospheric visuals and a series of better-than-average performances. (Russell’s strong work here is certainly matched by an eclectic periphery cast that includes Jesse Plemons, Amy Madigan, and Graham Greene.) It’s disappointing to note, then, that the picture eventually moves into an egregiously deliberate and sluggish midsection that slowly-but-surely drains the viewers interest (and attention), as Cooper pushes the deliberate, grim aesthetic to its breaking point and exacerbates the progressively far-from-enthralling vibe by focusing on the narrative’s least compelling attributes. (There’s certainly nothing fresh about the earnest-teacher-trying-to-reach-a-withdrawn-student storyline, ultimately.) And although the film’s second half does boast a handful of appreciatively gruesome interludes, Antlers has long-since cemented its place as a disappointing misfire that does, generally speaking, take itself far too seriously for its own good.

** out of ****