This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
The poetic words of T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” form the unexpected heart of Scott Derrickson’s incredible Apple Original film, The Gorge. It’s rare that a movie comes along that offers literally everything one can ask for. Amazing action, monsters, dark fantasy worlds, and a beautiful love story with a pair of undeniable stars in Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller. My only regret watching The Gorge was that it wasn’t on a big screen, denying me the privilege of seeing it in a theater where it belongs.
Taylor-Joy and Teller play elite snipers Drasa and Levi, who individually have hundreds of confirmed kills to their names. Both are struggling with the weight of their violent pasts, stuck between guilt over what they’ve done and despair for the future. He’s suffering from night terrors and lives in isolation. She usually has her father to help bury what she’s done, but even that isn’t helping anymore. Whether it’s a potential lifeline or just a means to vanish quietly, both accept a mysterious mission to man watchtowers on opposing sides of a massive gorge, with no idea what lurks inside of it. Levi is warned by the officer (Sope Dirisu, an unfortunately small role) he’s relieving that there’s to be no communication with the other watch tower. Just keep watch on all of the various weapons and cloaking systems, and don’t let anything get out of the gorge.
Derrickson has long been known as one of the great horror filmmakers with such films as Sinister, The Black Phone, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. But in some ways, The Gorge has more in common with his Marvel outing, Doctor Strange, in that it uses horror to enhance the other genres at play. The Gorge is, surprisingly, a love story first and foremost. Zach Dean’s script arranges a playful meet-cute from a distance: Drasa celebrating her birthday by signaling to Levi from afar. With no other human communication, they entertain one another with stuff they have in common: music and high-caliber weapons. It’s the lonely sniper equivalent of bumping into the person of your dreams at the grocery store.
We’re immediately invested in this semi-long-distance relationship because of the emptiness we know both characters are feeling. Rather than dragging things out for too long and coming up with manufactured ways for them not to interact directly, the film puts all of that aside and throws them right into the thick of it. The consequences of their first physical encounter find them thrust deep into the gorge itself, which turns out to be a nightmarish Hellscape like something out of The Lord of the Rings, complete with monstrous warriors on horseback. There’s a larger conspiracy that Drasa and Levi must figure out if they’re going to survive and have a chance at being together once and for all.
Dean’s screenplay was placed on the Black List of best unproduced screenplays and it’s easy to see why. He previously wrote the Chris Pratt sci-fi actioner The Tomorrow War, and tonally there are times when they mirror one another. The Gorge is fast-paced, endlessly exciting, and hopelessly romantic, with some cool set pieces including a terrific mountainside fight aboard a slowly-climbing jeep.
Derrickson has used his powers to scare us more often than not but here he shows a deft hand at directing action and romance. He’s got the perfect pair of leads in Taylor-Joy and Teller, whose romantic and physical chemistry is off the charts. There’s even a nice callback to Teller’s Whiplash drumming skills during the surprisingly lovely courtship. If I have a complaint, it’s that at just over 2 hours long, there isn’t enough story without a few scenes that are stretched thin. But then, there’s so much to enjoy about The Gorge that you don’t mind being stuck with guard duty this time.
Apple TV+ will stream The Gorge beginning February 14th.
