Bigelow’s thriller proposes a serious threat
I’d like to assume that most people would not welcome a nuclear apocalypse, and would prefer that the few individuals with access to nuclear launch codes avoid it at all costs. Writer/director Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker; Zero Dark Thirty) apparently shares this assumption, though she has instilled her fears of a (not-too-distant) nuclear holocaust into her new thriller, A House of Dynamite. Taut and unnerving, A House of Dynamite attempts a realistic portrayal of a horrific “what if” scenario. Bigelow’s film doesn’t point fingers or attempt to push the needle of public opinion in a particular direction. Instead, Bigelow frames the film as a cautionary tale that exists simply as a visual representation of our deepest nuclear fears.
A House of Dynamite is divided into three sections representing multiple viewpoints of the same timeframe (about twenty minutes). In the film, the U.S. government must handle a nuclear missile with an unidentified origin heading toward the U.S. mainland. The impressive cast includes Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Jared Harris, Gabriel Basso, Anthony Ramos, Tracy Letts, Greta Lee, and Jason Clarke, each giving strong performances as competent officials coming face-to-face with an unimaginable scenario. The deliberate mundanity of the minutes leading up to the missile’s detection are the most eerie, since it’s the most glaring example of a “hey, this could really happen any day” type of anxiety. The film is most exhilarating when it begins to depict a scrambling cacophony of disaster preparedness, information sharing, and emotional realizations, but the occasional cinematic flourish bumps against the film’s otherwise realistic tone.
Even as the same situation plays out over and over again, Bigelow manages to keep us on edge using very clever editing and a spine-tingling score by Volker Bertelmann (Conclave). Of course, the threat of a nuclear disaster is nerve-racking on its own. Noah Oppenheim’s script (his surname is an unnerving coincidence) wisely keeps the viewer in the dark, making us as eager for answers as the characters. A House of Dynamite deftly points out that no amount of preparedness can account for each and every detail when the unthinkable occurs. We can only watch and hope that the individuals with the power to stop/minimize/detect/and respond to such scary scenarios have the information, tools, and wherewithal to do so.
Depending on how much “reality” you like in your movies, A House of Dynamite may annoy you or relieve your anxiety. Moments that would normally elicit an eyeroll, like a cut to a character’s family member going about their ignorant daily routine, or a military general delivering the line “This isn’t insanity. This is reality,” evoke a sense of relief, reminding us that what we’re watching is still just a movie. Bigelow uses quick conversations between characters and their (seen and unseen) family members, no matter how silly they sound, to remind us of the human toll of such a dreadful scenario. But it’s not like we needed to be reminded that nukes are destructive.
So, how does A House of Dynamite differ from other movies of the same ilk? The film feels like Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove meets Sidney Lumet’s Fail Safe (which it has the most in common with). The shared message of these films is that nuclear war is bad, deadly, and disastrous, and also scarily possible. Bigelow’s film dives deeper into the personal lives of its characters than Fail Safe, and isn’t the brilliantly comedic albeit anxiety-fueled farce of Strangelove. Aside from including U.S.’s longstanding international “foes” within the chaotic scrambling of its characters (read: Russia and North Korea), A House of Dynamite doesn’t place blame or name names. The film wants us to acknowledge the fact that we live in turbulent times, with one particular end result of our turbulent times being quite dreadful. Message received.
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A House of Dynamite opens in theaters for two weeks on Friday, Oct 10th, then streaming on Netflix on Friday, Oct. 24th.
