Cinematically speaking, Thanksgiving is beginning to have the same connotations as the white picket fences and manicured lawns of suburban America: symbols of disaster or tragedy. In "The Company Men" (2010), Ben Affleck feels his jobless life unravelling at the Thanksgiving table. In "Four Brothers" (2005), the holidays spiral into a tornado of revenge and executions. And now here's "Prisoners," a Thanksgiving story so dark and unforgiving you'll likely remember it the next time the four-day weekend rolls around.
This is Quebecois director Denis Villeneuve’s first English-language film, and comes on the heels of “Incendies,” which he released in 2010. Smaller in scale than that phenomenally succesful film but dealing again with family history and a shattering family tragedy, "Prisoners" feels medieval in the way it's steeped in a potion of vengeance and guilt.
The two leads — Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal — spend the film wrestling with roles at the very limits of human rage. Their powerhouse performances will leave burn marks on the senses.