Pascal Laugier has done it again. Divided opinion, and crafted a thoughtful, and thought provoking, tale that twists and turns and asks questions but gives no answers. The Tall Man is his English language debut, and comes four years after his masterpiece Martyrs. It stars Jessica Biel who specifically wanted to be in this movie precisely BECAUSE of Martyrs. That is taste I can respect.
So who is The Tall Man? Well, The Tall Man is the name the good folk of Cold Rock have given to a mythical person/entity/ghost/whatever that has been systematically abducting their children. So far there have been 18 abductions. The children have just up and vanished, leaving absolutely no trace behind. Who is doing this? The townsfolk gather and whisper, but none of them seem to be overly concerned about it necessarily— as the narration tells us, they’re just hoping their child won’t be next. You see, Cold Rock is a town devoid of hope, and drenched in apathy. It’s a former mining town, and whatever made it what it was, has long since been blown away by the winds of change. The mine is closed, the people can’t get new jobs, the streets are half empty, the trailer parks are filled with ageing and rusted homes and old cars and general garbage. There is nothing here. It’s nothing but a wasteland. It’s certainly not a place to raise children.
Biel plays Julia, the local nurse at a “free clinic”. Her husband, who was the doctor, has died, we are led to believe, and so she is just battling on by herself, keeping this little lost community together. It’s all shaping up to just be your generic supernatural being kidnapping children spooky thriller. And you know what’s coming next, don’t you? That’s right — Julia’s son, David, is the next child to be abducted by the eponymous Tall Man. And we’re treated to all the bells and whistles we’d expect — a frantic search around the house, a chase through the woods, some action movie style hanging into the back of a truck, a vicious guard dog attack, and finally a crash on a cold and lonely road in the dead of night. Julia fails to get back her son, and as The Tall Man carries him off to a fate unknown, Jenny, a mute local older girl, looks on. More on Jenny later.
Julia is picked up by a local detective, seemingly the only cop around who’s working hard to get to the bottom of what’s happening. And from here…is where the twists and turns deliciously begin, and the real story starts to unravel before us. We’ve been sold a lie. Julia didn’t even have a son. David has been “taken” from Julia by his actual mother, someone we were introduced to earlier as having been driven mad by the loss of her son. But, Julia was the one who took him from HER. Confused? Well, don’t be, as it’s really quite simple. Julia is not just the latest in a long line of victims. SHE is the bad guy. Or…woman. She can’t have children you see, and her husband is dead. There is a tall man, but we don’t know who he is. We assume he’s some horrible devilish person whom Julia is in cahoots with. Either way, the children are dead, scattered throught the forest, or buried deep within 40 square miles of abanonded mines, conveniently located beneath Julia’s house. Ahhh, what a twist, right? This is a story of a crazy person killing children out of some sick vengeance for not being able to have them herself. Hmmm.
Not quite. Damn! We just bought another lie! Turns out that REALLY Julia is part of a secretive underground network of concerned people who take children out of hopeless family ennvironments, spirit them away, and give them new identities and new homes with new loving parents. And Cold Rock is just one of many places where this is happening. The Tall Man — the man Julia gves the kids to — is her still alive husband. Confused? Baffled? Think this sounds stupid and far fetched? Read on.
So, that explains the plot, but let’s delve a little deeper into this. Because this is not a film about child abductions, or parents dealing with the grief of that, or child murder, or anything like that. This is a film about cycles of neglect. Children are innocent. They deserve to be given every chance, every opportunity. They deserve to have their potential identified and nurtured. They deserve to be given the tools to go out into the world when they’re grown up, and have a life worth living. But they’re not. Not all of them anyway. They’re born into situations they can’t control. Shaped by them. Moulded by them. And then spit out the other end to just get on with it as best they can. As best they can? Well, the best they can isn’t gong to be up to much, is it? How can they deal with the world? What tools do they have? None but the same old bitterness and hatred their family had. The same old negativity that they have been fed a steady diet of their entire lives. A cycle of neglect, that continues generation to generation thanks to a broken system too bureaucratic to facilitate meaningful change. What needs to be broken is the cycle. Someone has to BREAK the cycle, we’re told, in an impassioned speech by Julia to David’s real mother in the prison visiting room. But, I mean, things are never that simple are they?
Remember I mentioned Jenny? Well, Jenny is an older girl trapped in one of these bad family situations. Her mother’s boyfriend is a bad guy who knocked up Jenny’s sister when she wasn’t even 18 yet. But the mother doesn’t care. She fights with him. He hits her. She hits him. They laugh about it. Daughter and baby come back to live with them. It’s awful. Nobody is going anywhere. Least of all Jenny. She knows something is going on with Julia. She helps Julia steal back David, and as David is led away to his new life, Jenny begs Julia to take her to The Tall Man, even though she doesn’t know who or what The Tall Man really is, or where David has even been taken. That’s how bad things are for her. She’d rather take her chances on some kidnapper than stay at home a moment longer.
Well, she gets her wish. Later, with Julia safely tucked away in prison, The Tall Man comes and whisks Jenny away, and we get to see the aftermath first hand. Jenny gets a new home with a new mom. A new mom who teaches her about the real world and how to navigate it. She takes her to art class. They have a maid. Jenny has everything she could dream of. She narrates more to us about how she loved her first mother, and how her first mother loved her. Same for her second mother — Julia — and the same now for her third mother. She’s happy. Or so she thinks. She’s out in the park one day and she spots David, but David doesn’t recognise her. He’s forgotten. But Jenny can’t forget, she tells us. And then the movie ends, with the echoing and haunting words “I guess this is better, right? Right? Right? Right?”
Is it better? That’s the great question, isn’t it? The thing we’re supposed to ask. The thing we’re supposed to think about. The thing we’re supposed to take away with us and ponder and dwell on. And it’s definitely a great and important question, that I’m still thinking about. Of course children deserve to be raised in loving homes, but none of these kids in Cold Rock were being beaten or abused — they just didn’t have the perfect life that Jenny is gifted in the end. So, what right does Julia and her group of “saviours” have to take them away from their natural parents? Parents, who according to Jenny, did love them. It’s not for Julia to decide, is it? Obviously it meant a lot to her, as she sacrificed the rest of her life for this “mission”. And another woman working with her, hung herself, rather than risk being found out. But again, who are they to decide what is right or what is wrong? And who are they to say that THIS is the right away to solve the problem? The film asks you all these questions, and gives you no answers. You gotta decide for yourself. Would you be a Tall Man or Woman? I can see all the angles, and this was another emotional journey for me.
The Tall Man split opinion in much the same way as Martyrs did. It didn’t perform very well, and it didn’t receive huge attention or praise. That’s a shame because it is a solid film. It is much more than a by the numbers horror thriller. More than a typical good vs. evil tale. It’s a deep and cutting drama about what could really be wrong and what could really be right. It’s not in any way as visceral or brutal or violent as Martyrs. Where Martyrs was a nightmarish outpouring of pure anguish, The Tall Man is ordered and slow and steady on its feet, perfectly plotted to turn you around at just the right moment, and present you with options. What’s right and wrong? Well, who are YOU to decide?
