1922, somewhere in rural USA: Wilfred (Thomas Jane) is a proud farmer who's shocked when his wife Arlette (Molly Parker) tells him she wants to sell her share of the land they own and move to the city. To prevent that, he would do pretty much anything - even convincing his teenage son Henry (Dylan Schmid) to help him murder her, as a move to the city would mean Henry couldn't see his girlfriend Shannon (Kaitlyn Bernard) anymore. So the two kill her, throw her into their well - and at first, everything's great, life without a woman breathing down their necks seems to be more relaxed, work goes smoother, they drive in a good harvest ... and then one day Wilfred looks down the well and sees Arlette being eaten up by rats - and this is where guilt starts to gnaw. Of course, he covers up the well immediately, but not soon thereafter one of his cows steps onto the cover and falls into the well. So the well's filled up, but soon enough, the rats from the well infest Wilfred's house instead, as kind of living proofs of his guilt. Soon enough, Henry, suffering from his own guilt, runs away with Shannon, but the two really fail to make it on their own and thus become Bonnie and Clyde-style criminals. Soon they're hunted, but they manage to find a hideout - whre they freeze to death. When Wilfred comes to identify his son's body, he finds it half eaten up by rats.

Wilfred soon finds himself forced to sell all of his land, and for a much lower price than his wife would have gotten, and he tries to make it drifting from one job to another - but wherever he goes, the rats of his guilt seem to follow him ...

I'm really of two minds about this movie: On one hand, it looks pretty amazing, employs its slow-burn approach to the story well, oozes with atmosphere, and Thomas Jane in the lead does a fantastic job. On the other hand though, the film's plot ... just isn't very good, a blatant and simplified rip-off of Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat crossed with The Tell Tale Heart, with the ill-advised addition of a Bonnie and Clyde subplot while too obviously banking on the audience's (understandable) fear of rats.

All that said, 1922 is still an ok watch, but giving all its assets, it could have done with a better story.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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