Film review: Held(2020) ***/*****
A Jill Awbry-led thriller that topples the 20th-century patriarchal zeitgeist in good bloody fashion
Warning: This review contains details of sexual abuse and assault.
Emma (Jill Awbrey) and Henry (Bart Johnson) book an Air BnB in the middle of the woods as a last-ditch effort to try and save their marriage on the day of their anniversary — what could possibly go wrong?
Tremendum Pictures’ Held — currently available on Hulu — is a 90-minute slasher that is far more jolting than its title suggests.
Emma and Henry are an awkward and distant duo, they don’t mesh well or look like they want to be in the same room as one another.
After a generous glass of whiskey to cap off the first abysmal night, Emma wakes up with a foggy recollection of the night before, only to find herself in a new set of clothes and a bouquet of flowers on the nightstand wishing the couple a happy anniversary.
They receive a call from the house phone, on the other end is a deep and ominous voice commanding them to obey.
Surprisingly, the voice is giving them instructions solely aimed at “improving” their marriage. The two are forced to make amends with one another for their freedom.
Emma and Henry are forced to act as a traditional couple, to say the least.
Henry must open the doors and provide, Emma has to be a ditzy and complicit housewife.
Any disobedience to the matchmaker from hell and they are subdued by a deafening electronic ring.
The commands get increasingly bizarre all the way up to the climax when Emma is forced to murder the man she cheated on her husband with.
Right before making the same mistake again, Emma discovers that the whiskey she is instructed to drink is what knocks her out long enough for the evil relationship counselor to make changes to the house.
She quickly devises a plan to fake her incapacitation and pour out the drugged alcohol, and that's when the pieces of the puzzle begin to come together.
Emma discovers a closet-cum-fifties style evil lair.
In a surprising turn of events, she finds out that Henry was in on the anything-but-divine intervention the whole time.
Henry is in cohorts with the “Eden Group”, a strikingly sexist private company that takes its ambitions of “restoring order to the household” criminally seriously.
This scene in particular left much to be desired as far as cinematography is concerned.
I was immersed in what felt like a 20th-century TV commercial. The whimsical background music, wood paneling, and box TVs proved the perfect medley for the satirical nightmare that the Eden group stood at the helm of — and the spark that finally lit Emma’s flame of vengeance.
In the opening scene, we see a younger Emma as she is set up to be raped by her ex-boyfriend. This was a defining moment for her character and caused an understandable need for distance between her and most men she comes in contact with.
Her husband turned into the one thing he swore to protect her from, a quixotically justified abuser. But in Held, Emma gets her revenge in kick-ass bloody fashion.
In an enticing final fight, she makes quick work of Eden group CEO Bobby (Ryan Shoos). Henry — having somehow gained Twilight-esque super speed — body slams Emma through a wall. But she injects Bobby with the debilitating implant Eden group uses on their subjects shocks him to high heaven and rides off in the sunset with her Uber driver.
Take that, patriarchy.
