Quick Synopsis: When a killer injects her with a paralytic agent, a woman must run, fight and hide before her body completely shuts down.

Did Netflix gaslight us into thinking their original films used to be good? I thought they were, but looking at the list, there’s a lot of shit there. Well, maybe “shit” is a bit harsh, but for every Glass Onion, there are about 40 Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga‘s, films which are so forgettable that they barely register as being watched. Maybe Don’t Move will be different?

It starts promising, it sets the tone very quickly, and it’s really interesting. The opening kidnapping is shocking, not just because of how sudden it is, but also how cold and calculating it is. You can really see how the killer lures his victims. He picks up character information so quickly, incredibly observant. He’s essentially a detective who uses his powers for evil.

I like how minimalist DM is. There are a few other characters, but it is mostly just Finn Witrock and Kelsey Asbille. Finn Wittrock is good, but he never really feels like an individual, instead coming off as a mix between Bill “Pennywise” Skarsgard, Casey “Not Ben” Affleck and Leonardo “No Don’t Turn 26, you’re so pretty” DiCaprio. Asbille does A LOT considering she’s paralyzed for the majority of the runtime. She has tremendous eye-acting, which is essential because that’s the only way she portrays emotion for most of it. The small cast allows the talents of the two leads to really shine. It also helps Asbille’s character seem more isolated. This could have been TERRIBLE if it cut to her previous life too often (as was done in The Mercy) in an attempt to examine her life. Because we only see her in the context of a kidnapping victim, we feel scared and isolated alongside her; all we know in this world is her and her kidnapper.

I do have some issues with the script though. Not that it’s bad, but I feel it wastes potential. Whilst DM is good, it could (née, should) have been great. Her losing her body autonomy (we call that “Being An American Woman”) should have taken place in real-time, it lasts 10 minutes onscreen instead of the (I think) 20 it was said to have taken. Adding the extra 10 would have made it so much more interesting. That’s the case for the whole film actually. It’s crying out for a gimmick. Maybe that’s real-time, so we get LONG shots of her being driven to the cabin the kidnapper hopes to keep her in, the longer the drive, the more we become aware of just how hopeless her situation is. Maybe it could have done the always impressive long take, making it seem like it was all filmed in one take (as in Boiling Point and 1917) with scenes of forestry masking cuts and time jumps. Maybe if it was all from her POV, so we are truly in her shoes, feeling her fear and helplessness. Any one of those would have made it a genuinely impressive feature and would have helped it stand out. As it is, it’s just pretty good.

It’s a shame to watch a film and get distracted by what it is instead of what it could be. But this isn’t quite refined enough to distract you, so you can’t really help but let your mind wander. It’s a great concept, but there’s not quite enough in the narrative it to justify stretching it out to feature length instead of just having it as a short. It’s not, but it does have big “based on a short story” energy. This is where a gimmick would have helped it, it would have hidden the narrative swamp of boredom.