 Thanks for checking out this movie review video. This is for the 2011 film Absentia and this is a Mike Flanagan film written and Directed. Most people probably know Mike Flanagan for much more by now. He's done such things as I wrote it down I could probably go off memory, but let's save time The haunting of Hill House, which I think is outstanding on Netflix Dr. Sleep, which I think is really good Gerald's game, which I also think is really good Oculus Which I watched once and remember not enjoying but thinking it looked really good So I have to revisit that and then hush also on Netflix, which I remember enjoying that and I should probably do a review of that at some point Anyway, this this film was actually done two years before Mike Flanagan got his Film that gave him his biggest breaks, which was Oculus. I hear a lot of people talking about Oculus So I think I have to revisit it and speaking of a lot of people talking about I've had a lot of people over the years tell me that I need to check up at check out Absentia So I finally got around this. Sorry. It's one of those days Finally got around to it and I enjoyed it enough. I didn't think it was one like wonderful I didn't think it was the greatest There are a lot of interesting things here and I think it's cool For me to go back and watch this film because this is where Mike Flanagan started I've seen so much of his other stuff that well All of it yeah, I've seen all of his other stuff basically and so it's cool to be able to go backwards and be like This is where it all started and you can just see like the little bits of his directing Just getting started and the camera work that he directed and everything like that in the film and just you know Then think ahead to Dr. Sleep or the haunting of Hill House and just see a little bit of similarities But also just kind of see an evolution as well of you know Someone doing this very low-budget independent film which this was $70,000 film that was funded through Kickstarter and you can tell it's a very low-budget film But I do think for the most part one of the good things about this is the directing and the camera work really makes up for a lot of that you know independent Low-budget look that it has to it and also the fact that they can't use a whole lot of special effects or practical effects Although I think that the special effects that were used Very sparingly obviously were done well It was done well enough that you just get a little bit of something and it it's creepy It's effective, but you also realize You know they couldn't do a whole lot because they didn't have a large budget And even if you didn't know that they didn't have a large budget you would probably make that assumption based off the way those things are done and You know it seems to be relatively excusable. So They did a really large circuit run with this film, which I found very interesting. They had it to a Bunch of different festivals 31 different film festivals Which is crazy. I don't I don't know if I've ever known of a film hitting that many on the circuit But also not that I've really looked into it that far just saying oh and when I'm When I'm reviewing this film I watched it on the shutter streaming service So maybe it's still there. I assume it probably is so go check it out there Okay, getting into the actual stuff because obviously spoilers since it's an older film The sister dynamic is I think is established immediately obviously in this film between Trisha and Kali But I think it's done really well through dialogue and it's not just that it's done through dialogue It says done through dialogue that feels natural It feels like they are sisters that there is some sort of actual Relationship there so many times especially with more indie films Especially low-budget indie films Dialogue feels forced it doesn't feel very fleshed out when the dialogue is happening It doesn't feel like it's giving you backstory necessarily or when it is it doesn't feel realistic or natural This does and that's one of the things I've liked about a lot of Mike Flanagan stuff is his dialogue feels real his characters feel real its characters feel complex almost always and He's a good script writer. He's a very good script writer And I like the fact that he writes a lot of his own stuff and then directs it So the vision on the page becomes the vision on the screen and that's always powerful to me Those end up being some of my favorite directors and I am a fan of Mike Flanagan's big time I love a lot of the stuff that he's gone on to do The backstory on what's happening this is revealed also in a realistic way through the sisters talking So it's a really good way to get the audience caught up Not only on their relationship and establish that but to get them caught up on you know Daniel's missing and this is what's been going on With Callie, you know, she had some drug addiction issues, but I mean It's debatable with the way that the film ends and how things go whether she's kicked it or not But it is also that kind of thing of like once an alcoholic always an alcoholic once a drug addict Always a drug addict. You just might not be active at that time. It's a consistent fight to stay dry So, yeah there's obviously a big fear being played off of having to do with facing life-altering events without your partner and not knowing why Also, I think just isolated in a way You know not having enough people around your good support system and having to just like deal with huge events all on your own Especially when you had someone with you and then all of a sudden they're gone Obviously, I'm talking about the situation of Trisha being pregnant and Daniel all of a sudden going missing so it adds like extra stressors It's kind of this how do you deal with loss and still prepare to give your all to a new family member? That's kind of the big thing that Trisha's dealing with so I think that you can really feel as an audience member the way it's set up all of her stressors all of her, you know What's the best word I'm trying to go through? She's trying to work through a lot of stuff with Daniel But then she it's obvious that there's also still a little bit of stuff left over between her and her sister They also allude to the fact that she and her sister have had Maybe a kind of bad Upringing with the family because there's something kind of said between the two about trying to run away from their past and you know Cali doing it through drugs and Trisha doing it through Almost a forced relationship with Daniel and having and you know starting a family and having a baby alluding to the fact that She's not really ready for it. Even when Daniel was still that physically there. So, yeah For being low-budget the directing and camera work does a great job making up for that definitely Another thing I put down real quick. Holy crap Doug Jones Outstanding Doug Jones is great. He's barely in this, but it's just cool to see Doug Jones because he's awesome I it makes me wonder how Mike Flanagan was able to get him involved. I'm assuming I'm assuming a large part of that was Very very small role. You don't have to commit to a whole lot Here's a great quote that I pulled out of it that I think I'm gonna steal this and use this I smell like an armpits asshole. That's such a witty interesting funny line that Yeah, I think I'm gonna use that I'm tell my wife that one Trisha talking to her therapist and saying the nightmares with her hot talking about the nightmares with her husband Being mad speaks I think to a lot of her feeling of guilt and it's a feeling of guilt of trying to move on from him You know when anyone's trying to get over, you know, the death of someone the breakup and a breakup of a relationship any sort of loss There's always this kind of feeling of guilt when you're trying to move on that You're like betraying that person in some way whether it's to betraying the memory or betraying the actual person in your mind And that's clearly going on with Trisha with these nightmares that she's having because she's saying that She feels like he's mad at her and I assume it's coming from the place of She's kind of beating herself up with I am trying to move on But I feel like I shouldn't move on it makes me feel guilty and that's common That's like that's a normal thing and I really like how Flanagan a lot of times will weave those very natural human emotions and feelings And thoughts into a lot of his scripts I think he does it probably the most in the haunting of Hill House That's a very much about humans and humanity in the family unit family unit Sorry, and if you haven't seen it, you should definitely watch it. It's on Netflix So it appears the thefts could be related to the tunnel per the pile of stuff Callie found on the doorstep we basically end up finding that yes, that is the case and The tie-in like I'm not a hundred percent sure of what the tie-in is there with that of I guess that seems like it's it was a trade that was that that initial trade of her leaving food And so she got those stolen goods from people's houses in return and then in the end You she's trying to do the trade in the very end of the film So I don't know if she actually ends up Completing any sort of trade because you don't see anything or anyone come out of the tunnel, but She disappears and then you see a little you see her at the end Mallory detective Mallory ends up seeing her at the end it at the tunnel So I don't know if that's an indicator that she actually does come back But she's in the state that Daniel was So I don't know some a lot of the stuff in the film is kind of left open Very very open ended just to kind of confuse you more which I'll you know talk a little bit about It seems that Trisha's reluctance to leave her apartment has to do with holding out hope that her husband will actually come back And her inability to move on once again, you know going to this whole Going back to this whole thought of really looking at what it's like to try and move on from Being in a relationship or losing a person and also when you're dealing with a huge life altering event Callie being a good influence on Trisha to move her forward in life is very interesting especially because She it seems like there was some animosity there at some point because they kind of like pick at each other but also because she was a drug addict and You know people would normally say, you know, oh People get dismissed for having been drug addicts before so the fact that she's a character that pushes things forward in a positive manner in this is that interesting um kind of dichotomy of terrible drug addict in the in the minds of You know society But here she is doing a great thing for her sister and really being a good support system and helping her through What daniel cannot even when daniel returns because he can't do anything even and also it's very brief so It's a cool moment when trisha thinks that daniel's not real when she's on the street and she's going to go on a date with Detective mallory, but then uh mallory points out that that actually is daniel That's a really cool moment because you as an audience member Think that he is a figment of her imagination because that's been going on So it's a really good thing where flanigan lays down the groundwork for you also to think like trisha Oh, it's just a figment of my imagination. I'm just seeing things. This is the stress getting to me and the guilt getting to me so you really do think that as an audience member and It works it works really well So it's just kind of like oh wow moment when you find out that that's actually daniel returning and he's all screwed up The creature creature that shows up seems to be related to addiction in my opinion It kind of seems to be tied to that I say because Only daniel and callie end up really seeing it There's a moment where it takes or according to what callie says it takes trisha But trisha never sees it. You never see her seeing anything or hearing anything necessarily Or reacting to anything you just see her reacting to and hearing Callie and callie is the only one who's actually You know seeing and hearing these types of things although, you know You do see trisha being taken away physically, but that's per us what callie is telling the police So I and daniel obviously can see the creature as well. So I'm wondering I'm wondering and I do think that this is the case I'm wondering if it was intended, but I feel like this is how it plays out Is that it is a metaphor for addiction And you trying to get away from addiction, but it's always trying to come back for you and Once again, I say that because daniel seemed to be in a state of like Addiction especially because of the way he looks when he comes back and also duck jones's character Who ends up being found dead there also looks like you know a white Whitened drug addict who's very emaciated. So that's why I say that Because of being low budget the quick glimpses of the creature actually works really well given the constraints The premise of the tunnel taking many people over time is a really cool premise I really like the introduction of this later on in the film When you hear it, you just hope that that's what's actually at play and then it's not a situation where Callie's just losing it because I really hate When that's the situation in the film you get to the end of it and it's this thing like oh, she's nuts Or oh, it was all a dream like those things I hate those things are so overdone. They're so cliche. They're so dumb and I feel like they're cop outs So they have a path that you could go down you could choose to believe to go down With this film that is that but there's so much else thrown out there that I'm going to choose to believe that that's not the situation So and I really like that premise kind of thrown out there about the tunnel Notice that at the end malory does what trisha does in the beginning of the film Which is making up happy scenarios about the person missing in their life In the beginning trisha is going through all these kind of mental exercises of You know, I've thought about this scenario for why daniel's gone or you know, he's out there doing this or doing that Well malory because he's just lost trisha is doing exactly the same thing at the end of the film So basically detective malory becomes Trisha and that kind of dealing with the loss dealing with the trauma trying to move on As a feeling has Been transmitted it has moved from trisha to detective malory kind of making the point that This is something going on in life. That's always going on in life for someone Somewhere and a lot of the times it has to do with someone who's missing in their life, whether it's Physically went missing or you know, there's a rift within the family or between those people And they're you know, emotionally missing or you know, whatever Just saying Um, they throw a bunch of theories at you at the end of further increased confusion about what's really happening But that kind of speaks to real life So often people so often people go missing and nobody knows why Sometimes that information comes to light, but many times the case just goes cold And that's why I think this is an interesting look at actual missing person cases too Because it shows you all the theories that go along with it the struggles people have around Whether to let go or hold out hope that the person will come back because that's a real thing Um, obviously it goes on with trisha and then it's also going on with malory at the detective malory at the same time at the end So it's a good look at The all the emotions and all the issues that people go through if they physically Lose someone if someone they love or no becomes a missing person You know, it's that constant struggle like I said of you know, do I move on? Do I let go do I Physically move apartments because if this person comes back They won't be able to find me and then dealing with the guilt of thinking about moving on Like trisha does in this Um, so some stuff after the fact about the film the camera work is shaky at times But it's not actually as bad as I've seen in quite a few uh low budget independent films So not too bad, but there is some shakiness The film does have a tendency to drag quite a bit at times because it relies very very heavily on dialogue But I and I think it does a decent job of you know, moving everything with dialogue, but There are some scenes that I think would have been better just being cut down It seems like maybe it was stretched a little bit to try and hit kind of an hour and a half mark And I think some stuff really should have been cut down to make it a little more tight Because you don't need a half an hour and a half for this film I mean, I'm not talking about cutting a ton. Maybe like 15 minutes or so so There's a tale of two sisters trying to deal with issues from their past in this which Like I was saying was alluded to about there being an issue from their childhood One that would force themselves into a relationship and the other one that chose to deal with stuff through drugs And these are certainly things that people do in life Uh, I feel this is an overall contemplation of how hard it is for people to move on in life And that there are so many ways for a person to disappear from your life Whether it be physically or whether it be emotionally like I was talking about or you know There's an argument and then you don't talk to each other. Uh, that person's still missing and Yeah, so That's just my thought on it. So I I like the fact that this film brings up a lot of interesting points And it really makes you think about these things that everything I've been talking about But you know, it is kind of slow and you know, it's not the best film. It is pretty it's solidish So I'm gonna out of five stars possible with half stars in play I'm gonna give it two and a half stars because I do feel feel very in the middle on it But regardless, I'm glad that I checked this out And it's great to see the beginnings of Mike Flanigan, especially since I've seen everything else that he's done And look forward to what he's gonna do But yeah, so anyway, put your comments down there. Let's talk about this film I know plenty of other people out there have seen it So let's talk about that But do me a quick favor and hit that subscribe button because if you like any video I've done this one or other ones That's your best way to repay me is with a subscribe Uh, because it means a lot to me and it can really help out with my channel growth, which I'm trying to accomplish obviously, um But regardless, I appreciate your time watching this and until next time keep it brutal