The Swerve

95 Minutes – Not Yet Rated

Written and Directed by Dean Kapsalis

Available on FandangoNow, Vudu, Amazon Prime Video

Synopsis:
Holly seems to have it all: two kids, a nice house, a good job as a teacher, and a husband with his career on the way up. But there are troubling signs that all is not right in her world. The insomnia. The medication for the insomnia. The dreams from the medication for the insomnia. The arrival of her estranged sister and a mouse invading her home don’t help either. Add the weight of a dark secret, and her already delicate balance collapses, sending her spiraling out of control.

I’ll be honest, the synopsis really tells you all I want you to know about the story being told here, so let’s talk about the performances instead.

Azura Skye creates in Holly a woman not unlike many women we all know: bright, successful (on the outside), but a bit run down, tired, and worried about all the things everyone worry about: money, kids, career…LIFE, really.

And if that wasn’t enough… sleep deprivation. Holly suffers from crippling insomnia, the kind drugs can barely touch, and the side effects from those only deepen the surrounding darkness of the world for her.

It has been proven again and again the human mind is not intended to function without sleep. Without sleep, dreams, and the refreshing of our physical selves, human beings begin to slowly wither.

And Holly is withering.

There is a reason sleep deprivation is used as a form of psychological manipulation and/or torture.

And the portrayal of Holly’s slow, spiraling decent into, not madness exactly, but perhaps a sort of unreality, is presented with longing by Skye, trying desperately to find a fixed point to tether Holly to in the storm of her mind, but finding none.

The Swerve is really a fantastic, slow-burn character piece that grabs you early, then drags you though Holly’s personal hell… and I mean that in a good way.

By the end, you root for Holly desperately, even though her story can only play out one way.

And don’t even get me started on the mouse…

The Swerve features Azura Skye, Bryce Pinkham, Ashley Bell, Zach Rand, Raen Phillips, Liam Seib, Deborah Hedwall, Dan Daily, and Jason Gupton.

My Grade: A

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