Amazing journey to an ok destination.
Reviewed by Jeremy Elwood
The screening of Weapons I attended came with several polite entreaties to avoid spoilers, and I’m more than happy to comply, so let’s just start with what we know.
“Last night at 2:17am, every child from Mrs Gandy’s class woke up, got out of bed, went downstairs, opened the front door, walked into the dark…and they never came back.”
If you’ve seen the poster or trailer, you’ll know this already. You may have stumbled across the website MaybrookMissing.com, which won’t tell you much more. You’re invited to join in the search, form your own leads, and see how the mystery unfolds. As a piece of marketing, it’s clever, fun and a welcome change from the usual trumpeting of stars and stunts. As a setup for a story, it’s brilliant.
That story will play out through the eyes of several characters, but most prominently Mrs Gandy herself and Archer Graff, father of one of the missing. It’s a story that keeps us guessing, and keeps us enthralled for almost it’s entirety. Almost.
Weapons is carried on the back of two terrific central performances. As Justine Gandy, the teacher at the centre of the mystery who has all-too-believably become a scapegoat, Julia Garner continues her rapid career ascent after her breakthrough in Ozark. The more we find out about her, and the longer Garner is onscreen, the more evidence you can build for whichever theory you like; victim, suspect or something in between.
As Archer Graff, it’s such a relief to see Josh Brolin finally get day release from the Avengers-Deadpool-Dune luxury prison he’s been cooped up in for nearly a decade. Here, the granite-faced everyman jostles for emotional space with the grieving father, and it’s a convincing struggle.
The key supporting cast of Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams and Amy Madigan, with a particular shoutout to young Cary Christopher, are also excellent, but to explain too much about their characters would risk spoiling some of the fun.
Part of the intrigue is working out what, if any, genre Weapons is leaning into. There are satisfying scares, and yet it’s not purely a horror. It’s very funny at times, but certainly isn’t a comedy. It’s a detective mystery without a detective, a fairy tale built around a conspiracy. The satisfaction comes from just enjoying the ride, and bringing your own conclusions to play.
Maybrook is the kind of leafy, comfortable American town that will be very familiar to generations of horror fans. Like the Halloween or Scream franchises, the houses are big enough to be isolated, the school is small enough to feel familial, and the residents all seem to know more about each other than they should. It’s the kind of place where everything looks superficially fine, but you can never be sure of what lies underneath.
That theme, of what could be hiding behind the facades of suburbia, is one that writer/director Zach Cregger touched on with his debut feature Barbarian. And, exactly like that previous movie, Weapons doesn’t quite stick the landing.
Around four-fifths of the way through, Weapons finally decides what genre it wants to be – and loses some of its momentum as a result. I spent most of the film trying to work out how, or if, they were going to unravel the various strands of the mystery, and when they do – admirably, considering how much there is to explain – I almost wished they hadn’t. It’s not that the ending is disappointing, but rather having any ending at all almost dilutes the whole experience.
However, the path to get to that point is well worth the journey, particularly if you can manage to take your first steps on it without a map. Avoid spoilers, and start walking. For most of the trip, Weapons is superb.