For a brief moment around the turn of the millennium, Janeane Garofalo was one of the biggest movie stars in the world. Emerging alongside a Saturday Night Live cast that included Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, David Spade and Mike Myers, she became a poster girl for feminism before the word was fashionable and before detractors used the word woke.
A beloved Gen X movie star in Reality Bites, The Truth About Cats & Dogs, The Cable Guy and Cop Land, she has worked continuously since her heyday, but not, alas, with the prominence she deserves.
It’s nice to see her at work in this carefully constructed revenge thriller.
The plot and set-up is elegantly simple: 20 years after the disappearance of her daughter, Darlene (Anna Gunn), a recovering alcoholic, is preparing to host her family for Christmas. After some bustling around the kitchen, her neighbour and best pal Gretchen (Garofalo) says goodnight.
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We had sex maybe once a month. The constant rejection was soul-crushing, it felt like my ex didn’t even like me
Darlene is not expecting any visitors, especially not Jack (Linus Roache), her estranged ex-bother-in-law who arrives unannounced and uninvited. As they catch up, we realise that Jack was something more than her sister’s former husband. He has come to apologise. But for what?
Too late, Darlene realises that her phone line has been cut. As the storm outside rages, a battle of wits escalates in unexpected ways.
The Apology was produced by Company X Productions, the all-female production company behind No Man of God and Seven Stages to Achieve Eternal Bliss, and it has something of old scores that underpin Tishani Doshi’s breathtaking 2017 poem, Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods. The feminine energy is further amplified by sisterly performances by Gunn and Garofalo.
Working on a small budget, writer-director Alison Locke puts the confinement of one location in service of her claustrophobic script. A promising first feature.
