Single-location thrillers are a high-risk, high-reward proposition. If you do it right, you create the sense that the audience is just as incapable of escaping the scenario as the characters, so when the tension ratchets up, we’re dragged right along with that taut, nerve-wracking wire. The best practitioners of this particular dramatic skill can make that one location, no matter how small, seem like a massive pocket universe unto itself, full of possibility and unpredictability, pulling us into a story that’s grown beyond a gimmick and into the realm of pure human drama.
The Apology (in theaters and on AMC+ and Shudder on December 16), from writer-director Alison Locke, is certainly hoping to be in the company of other single-location gems, including recent successes like Josh Ruben’s Scare Me and Stephen Karam’s The Humans. Set in one isolated house just before Christmas, starring just three characters, and focusing on a decades-old secret that just might break everyone involved, it’s a film that arrives full of promise thanks to an intriguing cast and a setup that escalates both quickly and effectively. For a few shining moments, it feels like a film with the potential to be among the great cozy thrillers. Sadly, that potential is squandered by the back half of the movie, leaving The Apology feeling like an over-baked Christmas cookie that crumbles in the hands of its capable makers.
Anna Gunn is Darlene, a single woman and recovering alcoholic preparing to host a family Christmas at her home for the first time in 20 years. It’s been so long because it’s also been 20 years since her daughter went missing, and Darlene has spent the intervening decades cleaning up her own act and working tirelessly to both try to find her daughter and advocate for the families of other missing children. Her neighbor Gretchen (Janeane Garofalo) has been a crucial support system through much of it, even helping Darlene to get her Christmas spirit back by pitching in on some holiday baking. It has all the makings of a Christmas of healing.
But then a knock comes on Darlene’s door, very late on Christmas Eve. Jack (Linus Roache), her sister’s ex-husband, has dropped in for a surprise holiday visit, presumably to catch up with his kids and make nice with his ex-wife. But as the cheerful reunion wears on, Darlene discovers that Jack isn’t just in town for Christmas. He has a secret, something he’s been holding close for two decades, ever since Darlene’s daughter disappeared.
Locke’s script slots all of these elements into place with ease and care in the film’s opening minutes, where it doesn’t feel like there’s a single wasted second in laying out the wrinkles of Darlene’s life and how she’s learned to cope with them (or push them down so she doesn’t have to try). When Jack shows up, and the film starts to take a turn, Locke and her actors handle the moment like seasoned pros turning up for a well-rehearsed stage play, dialing into the emotional heft of the scene until we as an audience collectively lean toward the screen, wanting to see what might happen, waiting to hear what secret is about to come out.
Then the rest of the film unfolds in what turns out to be an often frustrating jumble of solid tension and attempts to elongate the arc of Darlene and Jack’s journey together through a single hellish night. To be fair, it certainly helps when you have actors like Gunn and Roache working in your corner. They take the best parts of Locke’s uneven script and make them better, but they make the weaker parts watchable as well, infusing a sense of life and vulnerability into each moment, even if said moment feels very much like it’s simply a waypoint on the journey to an ending. Gunn in particular musters all the emotional might she showed on the phenomenon-sized stage that was Breaking Bad and delivers a portrait of a woman fighting off her own demons while attempting to conquer the ultimate force of evil in her life, and her performance is often stunning to watch.
Where The Apology slips up, and where it slips up frequently, is in the journey between that wonderful opening turn towards darkness and the heart-wrenching conclusion, in which all three stars give it everything they’ve got and Locke’s script once again ratchets the tension and the darkness all the way up. In between are scenes that sometimes feel like profound moments of character discovery, and sometimes feel like filler on the way to that emotional kicker at the end. It all has the effect of making The Apology—despite the performances and Locke’s confident, often stylish use of a single location—feel like half a movie, and the biggest challenge in watching it is keeping your attention focused on the narrative long enough to arrive at the payoff.