REVIEW: ‘In Cold Light’ Is A Promising Yet Underwritten Thriller

With In Cold Light, French-Canadian director Maxime Giroux (Norbourg) makes his English-language debut with an explosive and stylistically impressive opening. Drug dealer Ava (Maika Monroe, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle) is in the middle of a deal gone terribly wrong and is thrown in jail. A cool marriage of 35mm film, slick sound editing, and an extensive one-take shot leads us through Ava’s eventual arrest. It’s a promising start for a film that doesn’t quite live up to its engaging first minutes.

When Ava gets out of prison, we learn that her twin brother Tom (Jesse Irving) has been running their drug ring. Ava’s arrest has put strain on their fractured family; their mother died when they were young, and their father, Will (Troy Kotsur, Primate), is unaware that Tom is part of Ava’s operation.

They’re a loving family that fails to communicate for the sake of protecting one another. Tom has a young daughter whom only Ava knows about, for one. However, when a member of Ava’s team is killed, she must go on the run, at risk of putting everyone she loves in danger.

The script struggles to create dynamic, fully realized characters.

Filling out the world of In Cold Light is the rodeo-riding industry (Will is a rider), police corruption, and an eleventh-hour appearance from Helen Hunt as Claire, a crime boss. There’s a lot to work with in its 96 minutes, yet, simultaneously, not enough, as the writing scrambles to fill in the backdrop of the world.

The scenes of Ava on the run are drawn out as though in real time as she runs, hides, acquires a gun, and then rinse and repeat. We struggle to get to know her beyond being a person plagued by guilt and desperation.

Hunt’s sole scene in the film is a showdown between Claire and Ava, and it is underwritten, with dialogue feeling more like a game of ping-pong than cat-and-mouse. They don’t feel like they’re in the same room, let alone having the same conversation, and the threat of Claire’s power comes too late to feel like feasible stakes. Characters like Tom and fellow drug dealer Adam (Noah Parker) are written as props and plot devices for Ava’s emotions rather than as fully realized people.

In Cold Light thrives in the details of the world.

Despite its flaws, In Cold Light touches on moments of brilliance. In a time where sets feel too polished and sterile (think of it as the Netflix effect), Colombe Ray’s production design is lived-in and vivid, as though the actors wandered into real homes and started filming. In a clever outdoor scene involving Ava and Will, the two must repeatedly activate a motion-sensor light to see one another in the late hours of the night.

It’s in the attention to detail where Giraud’s direction shines, bringing realism to a film that earnestly depicts the gritty reality of tense familial drama and the dangers of the crime world. Patrick Whistler’s screenplay is at its best when Ava and Will try to connect despite their equal love and distrust for one another. Monroe and Kotsur are more than up for the challenge, giving their roles more depth than is on the page. 

Maxime Giraud’s direction and Sara Mishara are a winning combination, elevating In Cold Light to something worth keeping an eye on. There’s a lot of promise in their collaboration here. There’s a freshness to their use of movement and color, indicating a promising, bold vision beyond In Cold Light. It’s worth a watch, on those strengths alone.

In Cold Lights is now in theaters, nationwide.