Surge (2020) Film Rise
Directed By: Aneil Karia
Starring: Ben Whishaw, Ellie Haddington, Hammed Animashaun
Plot Summary: Joseph (Ben Whishaw) is trapped in a soulless job, living a life devoid of emotion and meaning. After an impulsive act of rebellion, Joseph unleashes a wilder version of himself. He is propelled on a reckless journey through London, ultimately experiencing what it feels like to be alive.
Director Aneil Karia comes out swinging a sledgehammer with his feature film debut Surge (2020). So, I won’t sugar coat it, either you will be totally into this movie or you won’t. I honestly don’t see much middle ground here. The thing is the narrative is admittedly paper thin. Now, one could easily read that as shallow and even lazy in writing. However, I think that Aneil Karia provides enough emotional subtext to help gloss over this for me. Surge takes the end result of boiled over stress of middle-class life and turns it into a frenzied meditation. Watching Joseph break down and then just run on pure impulse is both incredibly liberating yet extremely uncomfortable. Think about the high energy insanity of 2006’s Crank minus the overt silliness (which I don’t say as a negative). And, clocking in at a lean 90-minutes (runtime is 104 with credits) the movie is thankfully never dull.
From a technical level Aneil directs the movie with a level of confidence that you rarely get with a first-time feature director. This is clearly someone that’s cut his teeth in the short format and is damn ready to show you what he can do. Stuart Bentley does a great job at matching the film’s chaotic story with equally bombastic camera work. But the real glue that holds this movie together is of course the lead actor Ben Whishaw. This is clearly a movie that is meant to showcase an actor and Whishaw delivers a raw, laser-focused performance that is honestly award worthy in my humble opinion. The actor can convey so much with a look and the fairly simple screenplay thankfully works in perfect harmony to his acting style. With Whishaw here, less really is more and the actor can go over-the-top in a way that is never hammy or feels out of step with his character. This kind of controlled insanity is something I think few actors can really pull off well.
Couple this with thoughtful sound design, editing and score and you have a more insightful alternative to Falling Down (1993).
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Big film nerd and TCM Obsessed. Author of The Ultimate Guide to Strange Cinema from Schiffer Publishing. Resume includes: AMC’s The Bite, Scream Magazine etc. Love all kinds of movies and television and have interviewed a wide range of actors, writers, producers and directors. I currently am a regular co-host on the podcast The Humanoids from the Deep Dive and have a second book in the works from Bear Manor.
