For years Stephen King’s Cujo, and the film based on it, have been traumatising audiences. The story sees a young mother and her son trapped in their car in the midst of a heatwave as a rabid family pet, a dog named Cujo, stalks around outside. It’s the ultimate tale of survival and man versus beast, and one that hasn’t really had much of a challenger, until now that is. Directed by José Luis Montesinos, Ropes places a wheelchair-bound woman, Elena (Ana Terrasa), against her assistance dog after it becomes rabid when bitten by a bat.
The film is held together brilliantly by a wonderful performance by Ana Terrasa. She not only has to act through Elena’s physical barriers – only having movement in her head and lower arms – but also her emotional ones. Elena became wheelchair-bound after a car crash, which saw her twin sister perish. Not only is she dealing with life altering injuries, but also a massive amount of survivour’s guilt. They are complex issues and emotions for anyone to convey, but to have to do them within such confined parameters takes an awful amount of skill, which Terrasa has in abundance. She draws the viewer in and sucks them into the experience with her. Elena may be alone on screen, but the audience is right there with her through every step.
Rather than take forever getting to our survival scenario, Montesino works quickly to get things moving as swiftly as they can. The skipping of the drawn-out build-up prevents the opening moments of Casualty calamity that many other single-location survival films suffer with, but it does still pose its own set of problems. Jumping straight in before the viewer has fully had time to fully warm up to Elena, or fully understand the limitations of the situation, means that the viewer has to work double-time to catch up. It’s only a minor niggle though, as once the film has found its footing, it finds its momentum.
Ropes is a cleverly crafted suspense-fuelled thriller that nails the overly familiar one-location setting survival story. Elevated by the fantastic central performance from Terrasa, this film is the perfect successor to Cujo, bringing the woman versus beast story bang up to date. A little shaky in places, Ropes is nevertheless a gripping and unnerving experience.
Ropes will be on Digital Download from 19th November 2020.
Ropes
Summary
In Ropes we might have finally discovered a worthy successor for the Cujo crown.
