Best Review: Warning: Spoilers
I agree with most of the user reviews here that this one started off kinda cool and promising. There was definitely a nice mysterious vibe to it, sorta like “The Game” with Michael Douglas back in the day.
The remainder of this review contains spoilers.
Problem is, that literally the entire story from the time the tutor, Ethan, gets the phone call to the end was predicated on an intellectually insulting plot hole, or, being kinder to the writers/director, a very dishonest ploy on their part to keep the audience in the dark. I suppose that they could have pulled it off if they’d tried something different. For example, maybe if Jackson and his father had moved to a different property than the one where his mother died. After all, nothing in the film clued the audience into the fact that Ethan had been to the property where he was paid to tutor many times in the past, ostensibly to tutor some other kid* – AND – where he had the affair with Jackson’s mom. But we are left completely in the dark to this crucial fact because the writers/director were aiming to make this the big reveal rather than what most of us probably expected – i.e., rather than Ethan being the truly guilty party, instead we get to the bottom of what Jackson’s problem or motivation is (and/or Jackson gets neutralized) at the end.
But the way the story line was handled, we’re expected to believe that for whatever reason, Ethan displayed zero familiarity with the property, Jackson was an only child and we guess much younger at the time of the affair/murder who Ethan was initially called upon to tutor, but never got around to it and had an affair with the mom instead? This makes zero sense, however, because again if Ethan had been there before, met Jackson (at whatever age, say 5 years prior), had an affair with the mother who ended up dying in Ethan’s company under suspicious circumstances, then why would he even take the tutoring gig? Does this make sense? Let me lay it out more plainly one more time:
1. Several years ago you’re called out to a very lavish, unforgettable estate to tutor a privileged kid who is probably aged 9-13 at the time.
2. You end up having an affair with his mother. You may or may not have ever tutored the kid, but you’d think that you’d at least have met him and if so you’d recognize him several years later. At teh very least you will always recognize/remember the property.
3. You either on purpose or accidentally kill the kid’s mom and somehow get away with it. You are questioned by the police but nothing comes of it despite a secret coroner’s report saying that no water was found in the lungs of the alleged drowning victim. Mkay.
4. You move on with your life and meet a new fiancee, she becomes pregnant and you are still a private tutor for a living.
5. One day your boss/whatever calls you and says you have been specifically asked for by a family and they’ll pay you $2,500/day to tutor their kid, so long as you stay on the property for as long as it takes for him to achieve whatever objective (higher test score?) he’s aiming for.
6. You get there and you must realize, uh oh, this is where I killed that lady and this kid will recognize me, WTF am I doing here, I should immediately leave and stay as far away from this place and this family as possible. But you don’t. Nope. Knowing that you got away with a murder on this estate, you proceed to follow through and meet with the kid, who somehow you don’t recognize at all, all the while pretending that you’ve never been there (including to the audience who has no reason to suspect anything until the first mention of the affair well into the run time).
7. You realize that the kid of the woman you murdered had been stalking you and your pregnant fiancee, and rather than doing what you should have done in #6 and GTFO for good, you continue to tutor the kid!
Ridiculous. This movie was entertaining until the end, but the problem is that the end ruined everything that came before it. I’m giving it 5/10 stars because it was competently made, started off quite well, and had us guessing for a little bit. The cinematography is good too, and the audience believes that Ethan is the innocent party for as long as the director lies to us that he was. I really think that this story line still could have worked if they’d done a few things differently like having the tutoring sessions be at a new property, explaining clearly to the audience that Ethan never actually met Jackson before (and how that would be possible since he was having an affair with his mother while ostensibly tutoring the kid!). If a plausible background had been provided, the “reveal” at the end could have genuinely worked. Instead it didn’t and it ruined the movie for us.
