When 10 Cloverfield Lane opened in theaters in early March, the buzz had been around for a couple of months since the trailer dropped in early January 2016. How did this movie fly under the radar? John Goodman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who was rising along with John Gallager Jr., were in the cast. It involved people living in a bunker during a suspected disaster related to the Cloverfield movie. It was produced by J.J. Abrams, back when he was respectable and co-written by Damien Chazelle, back before Babylon.
The movie begins with a young woman, Michelle (Winstead), making a clean fast break from her fiancee, Ben (voice only of Bradley Cooper in a phone call), and driving through rural Louisiana. It’s not known nor revealed why she is leaving but she is leaving New Orleans. Blackouts are being reported and then her vehicle is struck off screen by something. And she becomes unconscious.
She awakens in a room with no windows, lying on a mattress chained to the wall. A middle-aged man, Howard Stambler (Goodman), appears bringing her food. He appears to be cordial despite having a revolver on his belt holster, but Michelle is rightfully concerned. Where the hell is she? What is going on? There’s some tension and Michelle tries to make a break but she has a leg injury. And she soon discovers there’s another man, the younger Emmett DeWitt (Gallagher) there. His left arm in is a sling.
Howard tries to explain to her that the country is under attack but uncertain from who or what the extent is. The air is poisoned. There is no news on the radios or scanners. Michelle is with him and Emmett in an underground bunker near his house that they constructed about 40 miles from Lake Charles. It’s stocked for enough food and water for up to two years. Immediately, Michelle still doesn’t believe him and begins tries to make a break before she is sees that Howard’s pigs have been exposed to the elements.
Who does Michelle believe? Howard is very apprehensive and warning, saying he found Michelle as he was returning to his property. It’s implied that he may have been the one that caused the accident. We don’t know whether to trust Howard or if there is something more sinister. Emmett, who Howard hadn’t anticipated being in the bunker, is more open and friendly to Michelle, which irritates Howard.
The movie builds on the tension that we never fully know what is going on. We’re more in the dark than Michelle. At least she knows why she’s leaving New Orleans and Ben behind. Is her life in danger? She left behind her keys and an engagement ring apparently. But is there more to it? Ben says they got into an argument but doesn’t elaborate in his very brief phone message. Is Howard and Emmett connected somehow to Ben? Or is she going to be sexually trafficked?
The claustrophobia that director Dan Trachtenberg and cinematographer Jeff Cutter give to the bunker is subtle. The bunker looks comfortable if not basic. There’s a kitchenette and a small den area with a TV and many movies. Howard even has an jukebox installed. Everything looks like it could easily just be someone’s basic living quarters. But there’s a few questions that leave to be answered, such as why does he have a small mostly empty room? It can’t be a storage room because he already has one where Emmett supposedly sleeps.
Eventually, Howard and Michelle begin to open up a little about themselves. But she is never fully open around him. This is a movie that relies more on the acting of the three actors, particularly Goodman who gives a career-high performance. We never know what to fully make of Howard. It’s mainly because Goodman has shown so much range over the many decades of his career that anything is possible. Goodman’s played good guys and bad guys. He’s been in comedies and he’s been in drama. He’s done horror and sci-fi. Reportedly test audiences to Coyote Ugly demanded they wanted to see more John Goodman so additional scenes were shot. His screen presence alone even in bad movies is watchable.
His portrayal as Dan Conner on Roseanne and the spinoff The Conners has turned him into one of the best dads in TV history. There’s a comforting honesty about his role. Other TV dad actors like Andy Griffith, Bill Cosby and Robert Reed would have to have a superiority of them over the rest of the cast. They always had to be right and could only get laughs if the jokes were written to their specifications. But Goodman’s Dan was what most Americans saw in their own fathers, grandfathers and especially themselves. They didn’t have to be perfect captains of the industry or civic leaders. All they had to do was strive hard to provide for their families, give their spouse and attention they needed and accept they weren’t perfect because no one is.
Goodman brings some of Dan Conner to his role as Howard, which makes him eventually likable up to a point. Howard may be a conspiracy theorist who spent years prepping for a doomsday, but he feels some validation now that supposedly things have gone the way he knew they were. “Crazy is building your ark after the flood comes,” he tells Michelle. And eventually, they become a impromptu family unit. They work on puzzles, play board games, watch movies and make fluffernutter sandwiches.
Yet there’s got to be something going on outside that Michelle soon learns is serious. The inclusion of Emmett, who seems just a rural country boy, works as a way to help ease Michelle’s fears that Howard wants something sexual out of her. He hurt his arm trying to get into the bunker and although he may not always get along with Howard, Emmett assures her that neither her nor him were kidnapped by Howard. Yet there is some weirdness how Howard expects Michelle and Emmett to show him more gratitude. He keeps talking about his estranged daughter, Megan, but with a little mystery.
As for Winstead, she proves why she is one of the best actresses currently working. Her roots were in horror flicks like the 2006 Black Christmas remake, The Thing remake and Final Destination 3. But she’s proven in the 2010s to rise above the Scream Queen status to be a leading actress in movies like Kate, Gemini Man and Smashed where she played a school teacher who enjoys partying with excessive drinking. She provides a perfect balance to Goodman’s Howard. You need two actors who can work off each other properly for a movie like this.
Some people have criticized the movie’s final act as it deviates a little from what we’ve been watching. The original spec script written by Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken was titled The Cellar. Then Chazelle was hired to rewrite the script and direct but dropped out when funding for his movie, Whiplash, came through. Its inclusion in the Cloverfield universe is somewhat peripheral but not directly. However, after The Cloverfield Paradox, it’s become apparent Abrams is just trying to trying to salvage movies to make a franchise that no one really asked for.
Of all three movies, it’s probably the best one so far and way better than Paradox. There’s only so much you can do with people in a bunker that it doesn’t feel like a Twilight Zone or Black Mirror episode that’s stretched out to a feature film. This is Trachtenberg’s first movie. He also made the 2022 Prey (a prequel to the Predator movies) which also featured a strong young woman in a great role. I don’t know how Chazelle would’ve handled the role but Trachtenberg rises the movie above its B-movie premise and outline. That’s thanks in part to both Goodman and Winstead.
Early buzz was on a possible Oscar nomination for Goodman. But all it did receive was Saturn Awards for Best Thriller and Winstead and Goodman won Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively. Critics gave it almost universal praise with some criticism toward the ending. At the box office, it was a huge success earning over $110 million worldwide off a small budget of only $15 million. I also think the movie earned so popularity during the early days of Covid-19 and shelter-in-place.
With the recent harsh winters that have left people stranded for days and computer glitches which have shut down social media and phone services for mere hours, it’s begs the question how fully are we prepared if something really bad happens on a global scale. Even if we’ve built the ark, how long can we wait out the flood?
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 