Sharp Corner
Josh McCall (Ben Foster, "Leave No Trace") seems to have it all, loving wife Rachel (Cobie Smulders, TV's 'How I Met Your Mother'), a professional therapist; six year-old Max (William Kosovic); a good job and a new house in the country, but he isn't feeling fulfilled. But when a second car accident occurs outside his home, Josh begins to find a calling in responding to the victims of his "Sharp Corner."
Laura's Review: C
Writer/director Jason Buxton adapts a Russell Wangersky short story that examines something like Munchausen symptom by proxy, the condition usually associated with a mother who purposefully makes a child sick in order to be needed, here reflected in a man's desire to feel heroic saving victims of car crashes. The result is frustrating, an intriguing concept hampered by far-fetched scenarios and a bizarrely off putting performance from Ben Foster.
We meet the McCall family moving into their new home set back from a winding road. Max appears unhappy with his new room, something brought up for no apparent reason as the issue is dropped, but once he is in bed, Josh sips wine at the dining room table, admiring Rachel's yoga moves on a mat on the living room floor. She invites him over, but the couple's lovemaking is shockingly interrupted by the shrieking of tires followed by one crashing through their living room window, shattered glass raining down around them. Rachel runs to attend to the terrified Max while Josh runs outside to find the car's teen driver dead.
Marital tension becomes apparent during a house warming dinner party when Josh brings up the accident, something Rachel clearly doesn't want discussed (a rather bizarre overreaction) but which their guests wish to hear about. He'll also be asked about the surefire promotion we have already seen he didn't get. Once alone, Rachel rejects Josh's advances, accusing him of being drunk and telling him he looked smug while discussing the accident. Things seem to have settled down when a couple of weeks later, as Josh flips burgers behind the house, the McCall's front yard is the site of a hit and run. Josh runs out screaming for the guilty vehicle to stop, then returns to the other, begging the driver to stay with him, yet witnessing him take his last breath. He attends the man's funeral, lying to his daughter about a non-existent relationship. As if this behavior were not creepy enough, Josh spends his time at work looking into victims and watching accident videos until the man he once trained, Erikson (Gavin Drea), now VP of Sales, has to call him into his office about his failing performance. Then Rachel, who wants to move for their son's safety, notices Max has been pulling patches of hair out and books the family into a therapy session. There, Josh's faltering grasp of reality is made more evident when he declares of the last crash victim 'I could have saved him. I was the first responder,' and says the answer to Max's fears is for him to work remotely, spending more time with the boy. Rachel, who's already worried about finances, objects that he'll need a second car and that he needs to keep his job. He starts taking CPR classes on the sly and keeps quiet when he's fired.
Things get progressively worse, especially when Josh, who has Max in his care, gets distracted by yet another, particularly lethal car accident. But while we can guess what's coming, the film's conclusion is abrupt and not at all satisfactory, something which may have worked in a short story but doesn't for this movie. Smulders is fine as the increasingly disturbed wife although Foster is so bizarre from the onset it makes little sense her character would be with him, especially a woman in her field. Foster's simpering, unmanly behavior is so strange, we never have any rooting interest in the character. While his emasculation is made apparent by such things as his inability to win a strongman prize at a carnival, other aspects are raised only to be dropped, like his inadvertent learning that Rachel may be seeing another man. The film is just too far-fetched, losing credulity from the moment that car tire comes crashing through a living room window. There are so many horrific accidents in such a short time span in the exact same place that in reality this "Sharp Corner" would be the stuff of legend. Unfortunately, the film may be soon forgotten.
Robin's Review: C-
Josh (Ben Foster) and Rachel (Colby Smulders) have just bought their Dream Home on a remote turn on a country road. On their first night, while cuddling, they hear a tremendous crash and a car tire flies in through their bedroom window. This is just the first problem they will encounter living on a “Sharp Corner.”
Things start to spin out of control pretty quickly when there, soon, is another accident, this time a hit and run. And, the victim in the car needs immediate medical assistance and Josh can only stand by helplessly and wait for the ambulance. This prompts him to take CPR classes – without telling Rachel.
Meanwhile, the second crash prompts Rachel to demand that they sell the house – it is simply too dangerous outside for their little boy, Max (William Kosovic). She begins to see her husband becoming obsessed with accidents and saving lives and increasingly distracted at his job, losing a big promotion to a subordinate.
As his marriage begins to fall apart without his notice, Josh’s obsession only increases when he comes home with Max in their car and he sees there is yet another accident in front of his home. He orders Max to stay in the car as he investigates the crash and a burning car on his lawn. When he rushes back to the car, his son is missing. Frantic, he finds the boy near the wreck, where a person dies.
What begins as an interesting character study of a man who sees his dream life spiral out of control and turns into misguided obsession, denial, shirking of family responsibilities and his job. The problem is, Josh’s downward spiral seems manufactured and forced. Also, Colby Smulders, as Rachel, is a one note character as she quickly turns on her husband. She is supposed to be a therapist but could not see Josh for what he is?
When a story about a dangerous sharp curve in the road ignores, from the start, the obvious solution to the problem, I have a serious problem with the writing. Of course, if these two words came in to play, there would not have been “Sharp Corner.” The words “speed bump” came to mind within minutes of the start of the movie.
Vertical releases "Sharp Corner" on demand on 5/9/2025.
