The Line review: Alex Wolff leads a dark and disturbing drama

PLOT: Tom is a scholarship student desperate to break free from his working-class background. He is charmed by the prestigious KNA fraternity’s promises of high social status and alumni connections that open doors. But upon beginning a romance with Annabelle, a classmate outside of his social circle, and the manipulative schemes of his fraternity president unfolding during the hazing of new members, Tom finds himself ensnared in a perilous game of ambition and loyalty.

REVIEW: Few cultures have proven as toxic as fraternities and sororities. Over the years, hazing has transformed from comedy fodder in films like Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds to the notorious stuff of headline news. Countless frats across the United States have been shuttered due to criminal activity that has resulted in jail time and even deaths. The Line is a story that is a damning indictment of frat life and the personalities that are a part of it. While a case can be made that not every fraternity is populated by characters, as we see in The Line, the point of the film is one focused on the psychological profile of who would want to be a part of a brotherhood and how that could alter their own abusive tendencies. It is shocking, disturbing, and hard to look away from.

Adopting a North Carolina twang, Alex Wolff stars as Tom Backster, a suburban kid who has made it into the prestigious fraternity at his university. As sophomores, Tom and his best friend Mitch Miller (Bo Mitchell) look forward to berating and debasing the freshmen who come into KNA after them. Under the leadership of fraternity president Todd Stevens (Lewis Pullman), Tom and Mitch are instructed not to haze the new pledges as the campus culture has shifted. But, while most of the freshman pledges abide by the bizarre and abusive tasks set forth by the frat brothers, Gettys O’Brien (Austin Abrams) refuses to subjugate himself. This flaunting of tradition and rites of passage enrages members of the frat, namely Mitch, and results in even more intense treatment of the incoming class.

Much of The Line centers on Tom as he finds success in KNA despite his close friendship with Mitch, whom the other brothers do not like very much. Mitch has the backing of his wealthy CEO father, Beach Miller (John Malkovich), so the others merely tolerate his rude behavior and wild mood swings. Todd gives Tom more responsibility as a leader, and he looks to run KNA in the future, which is a golden ticket to a better life. While Tom struggles to get Gettys to abide by KNA traditions, he also begins a relationship with a classmate, Annabelle (Halle Bailey), whom his brothers demean as a Black lesbian. Tom realizes that the persona he has adopted to fit in with the KNA brothers may not be who he wants to be. Alex Wolff brings an intensity and naivete to Tom that feels like college classmates I had back in the day, combined with a haunted quality he put to great use in Hereditary. Equally good is Bo Mitchell, who could have been dismissed as a common, entitled rich kid but gives more to Mitch than I anticipated.

While The Line boasts a pretty stellar line-up of talent, most of them appear for minimal screen time. Lewis Pullman has less than ten minutes on screen, while John Malkovich, Denise Richards, Cheri Oteri, and Scoot McNairy each show up for two scenes or less. The credibility of these veteran performers is not needed as the main ensemble is more than up to the task of this project. The late Angus Cloud is good as one of the frat bros, while Will Ropp and Graham Patrick Martin augment the performances of Bo Mitchell and Alex Wolff. Austin Abrams, most recently stealing scenes in Wolfs opposite George Clooney and Brad Pitt, is excellent as the pledge who refuses to be intimidated purely for the chance to join KNA. Equally good is Halle Bailey, who is wasted in a role that does nothing for the main plot. Had they integrated the relationship between Tom and Annabelle more directly into the plot, I may have found Bailey’s performance more striking. Still, as it stands, it feels out of place in the film’s main narrative.

An impressive directorial debut from Ethan Berger, who co-wrote the screenplay with Alex Russek, The Line has the energy of a far bigger production. There are glimpses of David Fincher’s visual style from The Social Network throughout the film, a credit to cinematographer Stefan Weinberger. Berger never pushes The Line into an overt social commentary until the film’s final scene, but the message comes through loud and clear. Setting the film in 2014 gives some space to show that frat culture has not changed even as social norms have become more pronounced and transparent. The characters here all talk like real people and college students any of us have come into contact with, making their actions all the more horrifying. Much of what happens in The Line has been happening for a century, and this story’s fictional nature is not far from actual documented events.

The Line is an intense and challenging story that goes to dark places while never sacrificing character development for the sake of social commentary. Anyone with even a remote connection to fraternity life will see the reality within this fictional story. Alex Wolff, Bo Mitchell, and Austin Abrams deliver a chillingly realistic horror story of what unchecked privilege and abuse can lead to when perpetrators are not held to task. The Line could have developed some elements further to enrich the overall film, but as it stands this is a powerful debut from Ethan Berger that will be hard for some people to watch but should be requisite viewing for future college students.