PLOT: A young woman (Kiersey Clemons) washes up on a remote tropical island. At first, she seems to be completely alone, but the truth turns out to be far more terrifying when a malevolent creature starts hunting her at night.
REVIEW: SWEETHEART is essentially a solo showcase for rising star Kiersey Clemons, known mostly for her breakout roles in DOPE and HEARTS BEAT LOUD (she was also supposed to be playing Iris West in the abandoned THE FLASH film and even shot scenes as the character for JUSTICE LEAGUE, which were cut). Produced by micro-budget king Jason Blum, this is reminiscent of movies like BURIED, THE SHALLOWS and MINE, being wholly built around a single performance, meaning the film lives or dies by the lead’s charisma. Luckily, Clemons is instantly empathetic and likable, making this a decent watch.
Directed by J.D. Dillard, who also directed SLEIGHT, this is a stylish horror survival flick, benefitting from top-shelf production values (with one notable exception I'll get to later), including excellent cinematography and a dynamic soundtrack. However, it’s also painfully slow at first, not helped by the scant script, which reportedly only ran sixty-eight pages due to the limited amount of dialogue. Survival epics often do this, as if there’s no-one around who would they talk to? The problem with this is it limits your emotional involvement with the character, something CAST AWAY found its way around by having Tom Hanks’s similarly stranded character keep a running dialogue first with himself, and later with his volleyball best pal, Wilson. In THE SHALLOWS they did the same thing by giving Blake Lively a bird to talk to. Given that the movie only takes place over a few days it’s probably a little early for her to make a Wilson, but I wish there’s been a bit more chatter than the occasional “oh shit”.
Luckily, Dillard has a big twist up his sleeve that opens the film up a little more by bringing in a couple of supporting players (including “The OA’s” Emory Cohen), which gives the film a bit of a pulse and Clemons someone to work off of. It’s also a pretty tight little flick, running only a hair over eighty minutes, and Clemons certainly keeps you engaged throughout, which is definitely the sign of a major star in the making.
One thing that SWEETHEART is arguably hampered by is the limited resources they had to create a lifelike CGI monster. They could have found a way around this by disguising the creature, which is exactly what they do for the first half, but in the second part of the film, we get long, lingering looks, including an action scene set in the water. Here, the CGI does come off as cartoonish, limiting the tension somewhat, which is a shame as otherwise, this is a pretty slick production. Perhaps a person in a suit might have been a better idea? I mean, it worked for PREDATOR.
While limited by its budget as far as the scares go, SWEETHEART is nonetheless a diverting little thriller, worth watching for Clemons’s performance and some gorgeous location photography. Both Dillard and Clemons seem like stars on the rise, and this is a relatively good, if imperfect, showcase for both.