Listen, when I read about the premise of this movie on Twitter, I thought it seemed silly, but when I realized Ben Foster was the lead, I was much more interested. 

Sharp Corner is about a family that moves into a new home located right on the bend of a very, wait for it, sharp corner where horrific car accidents keep happening. As many of you may know, I try to get as little information as possible about a movie before going in and I really don’t like trailers, but to help set some expectations, this is much more of a descent into madness type of thriller that’s darker tonally than the silly premise might suggest. 

Ben Foster, like I mentioned before, is what really drew me to this movie. You may have seen Foster in movies like the 2007 remake of 3:10 to Yuma or Hell or High Water. He’s fantastic in everything I’ve seen him in, but especially in Hell or High Water and this role gives him a chance to play someone unlike other people he’s played. 

So does Sharp Corner deliver thrilling turns, or should you steer clear before it wrecks your night?

My Thoughts

Let’s start with the obvious part. Foster absolutely kills it in this movie. He plays Josh in the film, a mild mannered guy with a wife and son (played by Cobie Smulders and William Kosovic, respectively) that seems very happy to more or less sit back in life. Foster sells this meekness so well in the earliest parts of the movie and gives an authenticity to a character that we’ve seen plenty of times before. 

As he becomes increasingly affected by these accidents that are happening at his home, he shines with subtle changes and tweaks to the performance that feel true to the character were introduced to. While he doesn’t get much in the way of any crazy over the top kind of moments, which I really love, I also really appreciated the restraint to not go in that direction. 

Foster really is the star of the show for this movie and it relies heavily (or almost even exclusively) on his shoulders, and he more than makes this movie worth a watch for his performance alone. 

Keeping with the positives, I really loved the sound mixing in this movie! After the first accident we see, a lot of time is spent in the house and the background noise from the road is constantly heard. We could be eating dinner, talking in the kitchen, or whatever, but we hear every time a car approaches that corner. This builds a sort of tension, where at any minute an accident can plausibly occur. 

Having only seen the movie once, I’m not sure if it was something they did, or if I just noticed it more as the movie went along, but I felt like it became more prominent as Josh’s obsession with these accidents grows. Whether it was because it was getting louder or more noticeable or because I was becoming more focused on another potential crash, this was an amazing touch that really made the movie draw stronger feelings out of me. 

Moving on, I felt it was paced pretty well overall, but it definitely felt a bit slower as we approached the ending. I felt like this could have worked even better with 10 less minutes of it. It’s not even 2 hours long, so the pacing issues didn’t hurt it too badly or anything. 

Once the movie gets going though, you immediately know where things are going and more or less how they will end up. For this movie, I think that’s fine. It doesn’t need some crazy twist or reveal or something weird for it to work. Between the interesting set-up and the performance from Foster, it’s enough to keep you engaged even if you’re not going to be surprised along the way. 

Ultimately, what held me back the most from this movie was that despite the great performance, I just never got to a level where my emotions felt very strong about the movie itself. The stakes are relatively small throughout and we don’t get enough from the family at the beginning, or really as the movie progresses, to bring out any strong emotional attachment to them. So when things start going bad, I felt that I was more interested in it than I cared about it. 

Verdict

When it’s all said and done, I liked this movie! While it didn’t reach any kind of emotional highs, I was compelled enough by Ben Foster’s performance to be interested in the story and Josh’s obsession and descent into madness as the movie went on. 

The technical side of the movie was very solid and enhanced the immersion effectively. This is only the second feature film for Canadian director Jason Buxton, and I was wholly impressed by him. 

Sharp Corner is in theatres now, so grab your tickets and check this one out!