The Build-Up: A Survival Thriller with Potent Expectations
The announcement of Horizon Line in 2019 came with its own share of mysteries and promises. The concept of a dead pilot and two passengers on a modest plane with no clear landing thousands of feet above the ground was enticing. There was a promise of thrill along with romance. The trailer alone was enough for some people to start drawing parallels with Open Water and Adrift, but this time—high above the clouds.
The buzz that surrounded the film in the time leading up to the release suggested that this particular film was a step above the rest as was a concept centered around the resilience of a person and not just a drama where a plane goes awry. Tension was palpable and it was expected that the film would not just deliver edge of the seat suspense but also intimacy.
Let’s examine the film at cruising altitude.
Sara (Allison Williams) and Jackson (Alexander Dreymon) at the start of the film, seem to be ex-lovers who re-encounter on a remote island where a wedding is taking place. There is palpable tension and lingering sparks as the two share a short Cessna that will take them to the Indian Ocean for the wedding. As they fly over the ocean, a disastrous event takes place; the pilot’s heart fails and they are left with a dying Cessna at the mercy of the ocean and a ferocious storm.
Less about technical aviation expertise and more about human panic, endurance and broken love is much of what follows. They brawl with the controls, use oxygen bursts, hallucinate and navigate with ghost limbs the way the ocean below endlessly challenges.
At the climax of the film, it’s no longer about if they’re going to survive the flight. It’s about whether, in shedding all facades, Sara and Jackson are going to be able to reconnect in any meaningful way.
Sara and Jackson: Surviving Together as an Emotional Guide
After unearthing herself, Sara transforms. In the flight, there’s a blend of dread and anxiety. Williams Allison gives her the desire to triumph. In the beginning, she is the jailer, the one with the clutches of an observe, she is the one who left plurality. In the cockpit, the one collides with dread and anxiety devises a way to resourcefully get rid of love with Jackson.
On the other hand, Jackson who is portrayed by Alexander Dreymon, is more reserved but no less significant. He is the ascendant as one attempting to control and protect, the stoic “anchor” figure. But moments of vulnerability show he is dangerously frustrated with Sara’s previous decisions, destructing loss by exposing himself. The lies are confrontations with the battle. In their shared ordeal, the unspoken truths come to life.
The mark of any riveting narrative pivots on four major elements: plot, perspective, character, and environment.
Horizon Line’s most overwhelming challenge—and, indeed, the most talked about and critiqued—was its character development. These limitations, however, could be seen as a catalyst to developing an internal understanding of the narrative. Both of these elements, however, depend entirely on the execution of the plot and the world on a macro level—Horizon Line, as a narrative, is characterized as an overhack of an overcomplicated, half-told complex.
Perhaps the most alluring aspect of Horizon Line, and Jacob’s world within, features the computerized strokes of a god’s brush, authoring landscapes on the sliver of a canvas caught within a silk cocoon of clouds. Who knew a body of water survived on ponies and is swept around the world, alive with the whispers of an ungraspable void?
The Point of Descent:
Nonetheless, for all of its potential, Horizon Line struggled with its execution, and the audience felt as if the script relied far too much on panic as opposed to tension. The middle act of the film felt particularly weak; sequences of much needed psychological dismantling ended up repeating the same, ‘what do we do now’ moments.
Not to mention, critics were quick to point out any and all mistakes that were made. From the actions taken in the cockpit to the physics of the storm, realistica aviation was out the door. Though these types of films tend to stretch the truth along with suspension of disbelief, the film needs to dial it back, for what it asks for truly is beyond the pale.
The film as a whole also suffered because of unintentional missteps in the screenplay. Sharp cuts and sequences that needed the absence of sound, along with emotional charges, became tainted with the overuse of cliché lines bordering insipidness. As a result, these moments suck the tension out of the film.
The Reality of the People Involved:
Allison Williams, known for Girls and breakout horror film, Get Out, entered Horizon Line as a result of her and the character having similar traits. The reputation that preceded her was all about playing and portraying characters who staunchly compose themselves, only to later fall under immense amounts of pressure and unravel, which she then did masterfully as Sara. Out of the screen, she was in the middle of shedding her image due to the long standing role she had on HBO and trying out for the more genre focused cinema. For her, the film did not carry much admiration in the box office, as it was more important in proving to herself that she could sustain the tension without the aid of the entire film.
At the same time, Alexander Dreymon acquired new admirers for his leading role as the warrior Uhtred in The Last Kingdom, displaying his trademark stoicism. The role in Horizon Line, in which he could showcase his emotional range rather than his combat skills, was a positive change. Dreymon was simultaneously building an international career, juggling television prominence with feature films that expanded his horizons touch points beyond costume drama.
The combination of Williams’ star power with Dreymon’s emerging popularity made their joint casting a fine balance of salt and sugar.
Reception: The Anticipation Versus The Product
When the film was released in late 2020, the audience feedback was quite varied. The much talked about and marketed high concept thriller was received as a let down. The buzz was that the film was ‘watchable’ but failed to leave a mark as a memorable thriller. Survival films aficionados were rather disappointed, as it neither captured the horrifying tension of 127 Hours nor that of Open Water.
Others quite enjoyed the fact that it was plain and simple, devoid of any side stories or larger conspiracies: two individuals trying to outlive each other for 90 minutes. For viewers at home during the lockdown, this was appealing escapism.
Tales From Behind the Cockpit
The filming of Horizon Line suffered from a variety of issues. Horizon Line filming was primarily done in Mauritius and Ireland and involved days of creating sets for the cockpit of a plane and filming them from the cockpit. The sets had to be mounted to a hydraulic rig to allow for the plane to be ‘flown’ to give the illusion of df the horizon. The sets also had to allow for the the actors to be mounted in them for extended periods and have them through ‘turbulence’ while also interacting with ‘storms’ of varying intensity.
Allison Williams went to great lengths to ensure that the early costumes matched with the particular time of the shooting. This meant that she had to alleviate the problem of motion sickness while doing multiple panics that involved a lot of her hair. As for Alexander Dreymon, he embraced the opportunity to learn the finer details of small piloting gestures. However, with the majority of the Bruce Monro technical realism was kept to a minimum in order to as to not detract from the the entire piece.
Another production issue that does not come to mind incorporates how the production company was changed while the movie was still in the rcdevelopment. Although it was connected to a small studio during the initial stages, it was later supported by STX films. This company changed the release schedule and restricted the film’s advertisement during its initial release, which considerably limited its wider audience.
A Film That Floated Between Promise and Reality
As time passed by, Horizon Line’s initial break-out anticipation later turned out to be a whimper-thriller, and like many crowd pleasing flicks, it turned out to be another “meets the criteria” entry. It had the anticipation, it had the lackluster stars capable of pulling the real life mirror, and it had its moments of thrill. But it didn’t, at least, not in a proper fashion, made the most out of its own premise. That said, the underlying work, the mid-life crisis behind the planes, and the almost otherworldly concept of love microseconds away from being crushed by a kinesis at vast, sheer, nothingness and endless feet, thousands of legs above sea give it a certain shimmering glow, a subtle reminder that the most powerful storms, now and then, reside not outside the cockpit but beneath the cabin.
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