‘Push’ Movie Review: Pregnant-Realtor-In-Peril Thriller Delivers Expert Thrills
Photo from AMC Networks
From Jeremy Kibler
Both The Boy Behind the Door and The Djinn were impressive examples of Indie Horror done right and calling cards for writing-directing partners David Charbonier and Justin Powell. Once again proving to be naturals at making simple, teeth-clenching suspense-thrillers, Charbonier and Powell’s third feature Push is among their most narratively familiar—even if children aren’t being terrorized this time around—but still exceedingly tense and decidedly their most technically polished. Here, it’s a pregnant woman in dire straits.
Straight out of the gate, Push gives the viewer a tour of its sprawling main location in long tracking shots. The best single-location movies lay out the geography so we can be more invested in the chase and know where the cat is in relation to the mouse. Deliberately taking its time but very economical with its space and drum-tight in its pacing, the film has a precise and thrillingly immersive look and feel. It’s set in 1993, most likely to avoid the easy access to trusty cell phones, but recalls a classically operatic thriller from the ‘70s.
Plagued by the trauma of losing her American fiancé in a car accident, Spanish real estate agent Natalie (Alicia Sanz) is now carrying their son to term. In northern Michigan, she’s tasked with selling a secluded mansion at an open house. Naturally, the mansion has been on the market for years because the last owners were murdered, but right before Natalie is about to pack up with no prospects, a quiet client (Raúl Castillo) shows up. The man comes off shady and then reveals himself to be a threat. You don’t have to be a fortune teller to know that Natalie’s water will inevitably break being in distress, but she will have to push through if she wants her and her unborn son to survive.
Push is an expertly crafted exercise in cat-and-mouse tension and the kind of close calls you wish could happen in real-life peril (i.e. finding the right key to open a door as a killer approaches). Essentially an 89-minute chase from the murder mansion to a hospital, the film breathlessly runs through set-piece after set-piece, including one inside and outside of an elevator that had this viewer gasping and squirming and screaming, “Go! Go! Come on!” Every step of the way, Daniel Katz’s elegant camerawork, coupled with the filmmakers’ blocking, is mined for maximum suspense.
Similar to 2007’s New French Extremity bloodbath Inside, albeit far less extreme, this is mainly a two-hander between Natalie and “The Client” (we won’t count the police officers, hospital staff, and a mechanic guy named Guy who aren’t long for this world). The characters are very bare-bones, but Alicia Sanz is emotionally available and sells her panic and desperation as Natalie, while an against-type Raúl Castillo shapes up to be quite the vicious, imposing, and enigmatic heavy.
Natalie’s trauma is felt but sometimes clunkily presented for the sake of a cheap scare or a little emotional manipulation. Otherwise, Push is cleverly directed and satisfies in all the right ways (an early “Hitch & Wan Real Estate” is even a cute sight gag if these filmmakers intended it to be a nod to Alfred Hitchcock and James Wan). It isn’t so much a new twist on a home-invasion thriller as it is an effective version of one.
Rating: 3.5/5
Push is currently streaming on Shudder.
