Red Road Reviews

A closed-circuit city monitor spots a man she has an undefined connection with from her past - and that's all we are explicitly told for over an hour as she follows him first by remote camera, and later shadowing him in person. Who is he and why is she obsessed with following him? That's what's supposed to keep us afloat through long stretches of silence and extreme closeups, a tall order for any movie to be really effective, and Red Road eventually sags under its own protraction. Made big waves at 2007 Cannes by claiming the top Jury Prize, I preferred the director's Academy Award-winning live action 2003 short film called Wasp included on the DVD. Andrea Arnold has got an observant eye for working-class lifestyles and the fraying urban societal fabric but her screenplays could use tightening.