Prodigy Review (Film, 2018) #31DaysofHorror
A psychologist is brought into a secret government facility to perform an evaluation. The subject is a nine year old girl tied to a chair with a straight jacket and kept in a locked room. Her appearance belies a genius intellect and a sadistic streak that led her to kill her own mother with no remorse. The psychologist has one day to prove that the young girl is not an emotionless sociopath before the government facility is forced to take more extreme measures.
Prodigy is a surprisingly fresh mix between Silence of the Lambs and Firestarter. On the one hand, we have a narrative coded with the iconography of the classic Academy Award-winning horror film, complete with a dangerous killer rolled in on a dolly with a full face mask. The psychologist is also given the full Clarice Starling treatment at the start, being led down a long series of halls and locked doors while a stern man explains the rules for interaction. The young girl in the cell is a master manipulator who makes crude comments and matter of fact pronouncements about her visitor’s appearance, demeanor, and family history. It’s unsettling when an adult does it and utterly terrifying when coming out of the mouth of a child.
On the other hand, we have a story about a government that will stop at nothing to capture, study, and control a gifted young person with immense telepathic gifts. It’s heartbreaking to see a child held back in a straight jacket, even one with as colorful a vocabulary as the titular prodigy. When provoked, the child is quick to defend herself with a wave of her hand and her thoughts. Objects grown adults cannot move on their own go flying like an empty can, posing a high danger to anyone who dares to enter the cell with her. There are people trying to protect her from experimentation and treatment like a prisoner. There are far more people committed to studying her in a controlled laboratory setting for the advancement of humankind.
Prodigy doesn’t really do anything new with the horror or thriller genres. The plot is all too familiar. However, the technical execution of the story and the quality of the acting really elevates this into an event.
Writers/directors Alex Haughey and Brian Vidal maintain this elevated tone of alert and a battle of intellects. Every player in the story believes they are the smartest person in the room except for the psychologist. He is presented as just as dangerous as his young patient because he doesn’t follow the agreed upon rules. He’s a loose cannon that forces the adults and child to be on guard and actually pay attention beyond the uneasy truce that has gone on for a year. It’s a power dynamic that justifies some incredibly dense dialogue and a lot of static and repeating shots.
Savannah Liles, the young actor playing Ellie, is phenomenal. She really embraces this screenplay and makes you believe that someone that young really is capable of speaking like that. It’s not just the complexity of the words but the cold, biting precision of everything she says. There are subtle shifts in emotion and tone that provide all the horror of the film and it works. She is a compelling presence onscreen and dominates her interactions with far more experienced actors.
Richard Nell, as the psychologist, is a perfect foil to Liles. Where Liles is meant to do anything to create tension, Nell is meant to relax all tension on film. It’s like a Sisyphus spin on the 12 Angry Men deliberations. One by one, he will win over the other experts evaluating Ellie through a two way mirror, only to lose them as soon as he leaves the room and they pay attention to Ellie again. Nell finds just the right balance between passion for what his character is doing and being the singular force of calm in the entire film.
Prodigy is not the scariest horror or the most exciting thriller ever made. It is a well-executed spin on some familiar stories. It’s also mercifully short for a modern horror/thriller, getting in and out of a tangled story of secrets and truths in under 90 minutes. It is simply a well told story with excellent acting and that’s enough.
Prodigy is currently streaming on Netflix.
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