It is not often that I am impressed by a concept and think that it is original, especially considering how many movies and television series that I watch, but Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead managed to do it. Why are they not more famous? After watching The Endless a little over two years ago, I discovered that it was a sequel to Resolution, which I never saw, so I decided to wait to watch the first movie then rewatch The Endless. I thought that being slightly spoiled would ruin the suspense of the first movie, but it did not. I am literally blown away.
Mike Danube decides to save his best friend, Chris, from a life of oblivion, and he just needs five days in an isolated area to do it, but the ramshackle house is on property that a lot of dangerous and crazy people are drawn to. Mike gets curious about their surroundings. What is going on? Resolution manages to simultaneously make the human story and the strange phenomenon equally compelling and satisfying.
Most cinematic depictions of male friendships do not seem so irredeemably messy. Resolution addresses issues of addiction and depression with no brakes in sight. I adore that Chris is depicted in the worst possible ways, but we are still invested in his well-being. While Mike is the everyman protagonist, he is not as normal as he initially appears as you will grasp within minutes of his reunion with Chris. We witness the entire spectrum of their relationship dynamic, and it is not hard to see why they are friends even when they are cruel to each other, or there are gaps in their understanding of the other’s situation.
Peter Ciella as Mike and Vinny Curan as Chris have chemistry, and it is completely believable that they have been friends for decades. The dialogue and their execution of it are pitch perfect. “I’m going to fire up some chili. Do you want some?” “Does it have crack in it?” A sense of humor is essential in the best horror films, and Resolution never forgets it. It is a surprisingly funny film that had me cracking up.
Chris’ altered condition makes it hard to determine whether his crazy talk should be disregarded or actual evidence of the weird goings on. The location and inhabitants of the house organically attract disreputable characters. Mike’s willingness to do anything for his friend and family, including putting himself in quotidian danger, ratchet up the suspense even before Resolution reveals the horror sci-fi elements of its story. A lot of filmmakers forget that if we are not invested in the characters, we may not buy the story.
The underlying innate horror of the story, even without the unexplainable circumstances, is a turning point in Mike’s life that is not revealed close to Resolution’s denouement, but I actually guessed. Mike and Chris have reached irrevocable turning points in their lives, two different paths to a death of the self. These turning points would irresistibly draw them together in spite of all the other factors that are pulling them apart. There is real fierce love at the center of their dynamic even when they are selfish or stubbornly stupid. At some point, Chris and Mike kind of switch places, and people with close friendships can attest to how friends can easily pick up where they left off then unconsciously mimic each other’s mannerisms and habits when they spend time together. I was actually really touched and did not expect that it would earn its ending.
Resolution’s sci fi horror angle is Lovecraftian in spirit yet completely original and inexplicable. I do not want to spoil it for you because half the fun is figuring out whether all the strange people are delusional or dropping hints. It is a phenomenon that could only be depicted on film and does not obey any tropes though the language of those tropes is referenced in a misguided attempt to explain the phenomenon. This movie brings new meaning to the phrase “end of days” and eternity or the infinite. Some people may not understand what happened or may critique it as too meta.
I actually like the meta nature of this phenomenon since it indicts the viewer as an insatiable monster that demands to be fed and will react with fury if not pleased with the offering. Choose your own adventure or interactive stories are taken to a new extreme. I loved how this phenomenon communicated with the characters. Once you get to the end of Resolution, you will understand the beginning. It needs someone to hook, but you cannot get the attention of someone who does not care. There is more than one addicted person in the film, and anyone can get addicted to anything, not just drugs.
Visually Resolution does not seem as if the filmmakers were rolling in money, but what they do have is an eye, a distinct visual personality and style. The use of composition and camera movement completely adds to an atmosphere of dread since we are always concerned about what is just outside of the frame then the camera movement satisfies our curiosity. In some ways, the entire film is essentially and implicitly found footage. Only once does the film use jump scare, which I think is cheap, but forgivable. I would recommend that you do not multitask while watching the film because then you will miss something. Occasionally the frame will be off kilter, or the diegetic sounds resemble a film projector with the film reel slightly coming off the track.
I appreciated that even though there were Native American characters, they did not exist to explain the mythology behind the phenomenon. They are completely disinterested and possibly unaware of it. Just a bunch of weird colonizers keep appearing and disappearing. They have more practical issues to worry about, never befriend anyone and are actually a threat. It was a refreshing change, but I wonder how Native American viewers receive Resolution.
If I had to complain about Resolution, I could not always see what Michael was seeing, and I think that the viewer was supposed to, but I could not: the photographs, the cave sketching, etc.
When Resolution does provide an explanation, it still is not really clear. You have to see it to believe it, and I would not be surprised if you did not understand what happened. If you decide to see Resolution, which is streaming on Amazon Prime, I would recommend seeing The Endless, which is streaming on Netflix, immediately afterwards to completely understand the plot. There is a lot of profanity so be prepared to be scandalized.
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We do not really know what this being is, but depending on the human being who experiences the phenomenon, it is described as a god or an alien. It uses the entire spectrum of human creativity to ensnare its victims: cave engravings, books, photographs, film, CDs, records, slides, videos. The entity traps people by interesting them in stories. Once the person becomes conscious of the entity, they get trapped and forced to keep revising their story for the monster’s pleasure. This phenomenon explains why the entity reached out to Michael because Chris was too hopped up to care about all the weird stuff lying around. In a tragic turn of events, Michael, like the organism, becomes addicted to stories. I am left with an unanswered question-before they are trapped, how is the entity able to know the future and show them it? It only makes sense if Chris and Mike being trapped is a foregone conclusion, but if the entity knows when someone is not going to be trapped because it does not have access to all timelines, why does it even bother? The entity is definitely not god then because it has hope, but not omniscient.
