'Shadowtown' Review: Interesting Premise, Underwhelming Execution | Cinéfest Sudbury 2021

For me, the biggest sin a movie can commit is be boring. Add in the fact that it's supposed to be a thriller? Game over.

For the record, I don't take any joy out of a movie being like this. But there are films (and unfortunately Shadowtown is one of them) that have no spark to them and fail to create any tension or suspense.

Shadowtown starts with a very compelling premise. While most of the developed world was languishing in 2007 due to a recession that would last until 2009, Iceland was experiencing a financial boom. As a result, there was a rush to buy old properties and redevelop them into high-rise apartments and hotels, specifically in downtown Reykjavik. In reality, this boom was followed by a catastrophic bust between 2008 and 2011 where the three major banks of Iceland all failed, creating the largest economic collapse of any country during the recession.

Some really great movies have been made about the recession (Up in the Air (2009) and The Big Short (2015) immediately come to mind), focusing on the why's and the devastating fall out. Directors Jon Gustafsson and Karolina Lewicka instead take a different route and uses the sharp practices of real estate agents and developers as the background to a thriller. Just a thriller, not a political thriller, not a murder-mystery thriller, just a movie that's meant to thrill.

Maya (Brittany Bristow), a recent med school graduate in Toronto is informed that her grandmother has passed away and she has inherited a home in Iceland. Maya heads to Reykjavik where she is met by overly eager buyers urging her to sign the sales agreement and hand over the deed to her home. Maya opts to take her time and goes through her grandmother's belongings uncovering family secrets.

Like I said, there's a compelling premise, but the execution is severely lacking. The revealed family secrets are far from intriguing, and the "action" leaves a lot to be desired. There's no genuine threat to Maya that causes the audience concern nor is there a real mystery the audience needs solving. Considering the premise of the film, Shadowtown also doesn't make any real statements about this time in Iceland, political or otherwise. Instead, the most interesting thing about the film becomes merely a plot point.

While the performances across the board are good, none are able to really shine given an uneven script and dialogue. Throughout Shadowtown, there's a feeling that the film is drawing the audiences towards something meaningful or at a minimum, engaging, but it just never gets there.

The 2021 Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival runs online from September 18 to 26.