Bridgerton actress Simone Ashley has recently seen her profile raised signifcantly due to her performance in The Devil Wears Prada 2, but she gets the spotlight mostly to herself in director/co-writer Jennifer E. Montgomery’s stylish psychological thriller, This Tempting Madness. It’s a film that will look very familiar to those who have undoubtedly seen dozens of them dealing with amnesia, fractured psyches, identity, and violence. Twists and turns keep you on your toes for a while, but ultimately, the film fails to go far enough to make an impression.
Ashley proves deft and adaptable as Mia, who we are introduced to as she’s seen plummeting from a balcony, hitting every floor on the way down, only to be saved from sure death by a safety net. Mia wakes up from a coma, her body broken and her memories in tatters. She has no recollection of what happened. All she knows is that her husband, Jake (Austin Stowell) is in prison for her attempted murder. But is that even true? Mia’s brother, Ajay (Life of Pi‘s Suraj Sharma), is fiercely protective of her and is reluctant to reveal anything.
The details start to get filled in, through evocative flashes of memory that only serve to confuse Mia further. Is Jake really a monster? Is Ajay hiding something from her? Or has Mia done something horrible that she might not even realize? Montgomery and co-writer Andrew Davis go a long way in establishing the outside factors that are making Mia’s recovery more difficult. One of those is her family’s obscene wealth and privilege, which leads them to shelter her rather than truly confront the problem.
Interminably slow pacing proves to be an issue, as This Tempting Madness struggles to maintain interest between its many swerves, which themselves are pretty predictable for anyone experienced with the genre. However, there’s one moment when the film nearly goes off-the-rails in what would’ve been a welcome, deliciously weird way, but it’s like Montgomery took her foot off the pedal and retreated into a much safer direction. It’s unfortunate, because Ashley, who glides easily between vulnerability, naivete, and insanity, would’v thrived in a film that matched her unhinged energy.
This Tempting Madness opens in theaters and digital on June 12th.
