When I was writing about VILLAINS the other day I looked up its writing/directing team of Dan Berk & Robert Olsen, and realized I’d already seen 3/5 of their filmography (including BODY and STAKE LAND II). I’ve been meaning to get to their latest, NOVOCAINE, but I’m in horror mode this month, so I went for the other one remaining: SIGNIFICANT OTHER (2022). This one went straight to Paramount+ which, like so many parts of our society today, is now owned by a fascist billionaire currently buying up and destroying our institutions to try to make life shittier for everybody. So I understand if you want nothing to do with that service. But as far as the movie itself this is a good one, I think my favorite by this team.

It’s another one about a young couple, the lady once again played by Maika Monroe (INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE), but it’s more like her usual downbeat characters, and it’s a much more serious movie. She plays Ruth, whose boyfriend Harry (Jake Lacy, CAROL, BEING THE RICARDOS) has convinced her to go on a hiking trip through a forest somewhere in Oregon. He doesn’t seem like a horrible monster or anything, but tends to dance around the line between charming and condescending, and he doesn’t seem very sensitive about how nervous she is. She’s a surfer girl, she didn’t grow up camping like he did, and she suffers from panic attacks. She intellectually understands that yes, going way out into nature with him should be safe, but that doesn’t mean she’s gonna be all relaxed about it. You gotta give her some leeway and understanding, dude. Jesus.

But it goes okay for a while. They like each other, or love each other. He does know what he’s doing as far as setting up the tent, cooking on a fire, the stuff they need. They make each other laugh. There’s some natural beauty and what not. She’s enjoying it.

The big shift in the story is when he takes her to a really impressive viewpoint, seems nervous, starts making a speech. Oh shit, I was afraid of this. Yes, SPOILER I SUPPOSE, he asks her to marry him and no, this is not something she’s able to say yes to. And she gets so dizzy I thought she was gonna fall off the edge.

This scene is so effective, so full of dread and suspense and discomfort and it’s dealing with very real relationship issues. She does want to be with him but she doesn’t want a marriage. Obviously he’s very hurt and humiliated, but she’s also understandably mad because from the sounds of it she was always very clear about not wanting to be married and this was a crazy fuckin thing to do when they now have to still be in the wilderness together with all these feelings swirling around. She tries to comfort him, he tries to act like it’s not a big deal, of course things also get heated and they start saying really harsh shit they never would’ve said out loud before. So this is the normal real world stuff they’re dealing with when they realize they are also going to have to survive a horror movie situation.

Not that this is some FROM DUSK TILL DAWN twist out of nowhere. I was holding it close to my chest but the opening scene actually shows us a strange meteor or something hitting the woods and then a snake-like alien parasite taking over the body of a deer. This movie works because I truly am invested in the grounded part of the movie, but also it’s a well done sci-fi-horror movie with elements that remind me of PREDATOR, THE THING and TERMINATOR 2. I’ve heard it pointed out that the best PREDATOR movies are one type of genre story that gets interrupted by a Predator. I don’t know if anybody seriously considered doing it with a relationship drama.

The visual effects, when they come up, are well done, and overall it has a really strong mood and atmosphere. You can see the beauty of nature, what’s nice about being out in the middle of nowhere, and also what’s terrifying about it. The director of photography is their usual guy, Matt Mitchell, and it seems to all be filmed on location in the woods of Oregon.

The alien is able to take on different forms. With this context it becomes very creepy to be watched by a deer, because you don’t know what it’s thinking. Some strange discoveries are made. Because it’s mainly two people and one thing in some woods the story feels very simple, but that’s a little deceptive. I was impressed how many little things come up organically that turn out to be setting up later action. I’ll stay vague about where the story goes, except that there’s more than one big shift that I didn’t see coming, or made me wonder where the hell this could possibly go next. At a certain point it gets a little more funny that it had been, which might throw some people off, but it won me over. And it never really stops being about their complicated relationship.

I knew Lacy originally from last season of The Office, then he was on the excellent-but-only-one-season High Fidelity show. I almost feel bad for him for so perfectly capturing this specific type of handsome dude. Just looking at him he seems like the current boyfriend that the woman in the rom-com needs to get rid of to be with her true love. Probly grew up rich, definitely went to an Ivy League college, definitely works some job where he wears a suit that he looks too good in. And you hate him. But he smiles at you and you kind of like him and realize he hasn’t done anything to you. But fuck that guy.

So he’s perfect for this – somebody Ruth is happy being with but doesn’t quite love him in the specific way he wants and feels guilty about it, like something must be wrong with her. He’s able to be a little sympathetic, but also a bad guy, in more ways than one.

And it kinda goes without saying that Monroe really kills it. They both have scenes where they have to act weird and be able to be read in different ways when we don’t know what’s going on. But first she has to be this character who’s emotionally troubled and going through it, but mostly holding it together. I really rooted for her to find her happiness and also not get killed or subsumed by an extra-terrestrial being. I mean I suppose I would want that for just about anybody, but Maika Monroe always earns it.