‘Trunk’ Is a Tightly Controlled Ride

German writer/director Marc Schießer’s international debut takes off at speed from the moment Malina (Sina Martens) wakes up disoriented and bleeding in the boot trunk of a moving car. Thankfully for her, the person who put her there neglected to take her phone off her or tie her up. (Which are rookie mistakes, to be honest. That’s like the number one thing when abducting people: take their phone. Always tie up their hands behind them as well; tying in front gives them way too much ability to attack. I always make a list on these occasions. Anyway, I digress…)

Refreshingly, the film doesn’t fall back on the “no reception” cop-out and lets Malina call the police and her family. That still leaves the problem of help needing to find the car. So, think of it as similar to Ryan Reynolds’ Buried, but on the move.

In A Tight (-ish) Spot

The premise might sound like a nightmarish watch for the claustrophobic but the space occupied by Malina is, while cramped, certainly a little bigger than you might expect. It gives just enough room for the director to keep the film kinetic and fast-moving while locked in one location. A huge amount of credit has to go to Sina Martens. She keeps her performance gripping and emotional, filling the screen throughout without ever going over the top.

It’s a bold (and let’s be honest, cost-effective) move to stay in the trunk for almost the whole runtime and only let the audience see and hear what Malina experiences. At times, it might have helped to show what the authorities were doing, if only to explain the difficulties in finding the car. I’ve no doubt this film is probably pretty realistic in how far it can use cellphone technology in these situations, but after decades of Hollywood’s “Computers are magic” approach in films like Enemy Of The State or Eagle Eye, the viewer forgets that it would take a lot of time and/or very senior authorization to triangulate a location on a moving phone in real time. A quick discussion between some cops in a station would have cleared this up nicely.

A Driven Plot

Without getting into spoilers, as the story unfolds it becomes clear that Malina was not kidnapped randomly. The information on who her kidnapper is and what he wants is parceled out skillfully, and Schießer ensures each of the film’s twists and turns have time to breathe before the next reveal. The same goes for the character of Malina. For a while, we only know that she’s quite controlled in a crisis and has some degree of medical knowledge. Her initial assessment of her situation, full of references to vertebrae and blood loss, is a wonderful piece of “show, don’t tell.”

Each conversation from then on fills in a little more of her backstory without ever losing focus on the here and now of her situation. Flashbacks or scenes of her family would have harmed the propulsive momentum and the director wisely eschews them.

The Final Straight

The final fifteen minutes or so are where the film really moves up a gear. (Okay, that was the last car pun, honest.) Again, no spoilers, but the stakes go up a notch and both Martens’ performance and the direction are equal to it. Shooting a car chase only from a hole in the trunk might have been another money-saving decision, but it works wonderfully. Only getting flashes of cars swerving in and out of frame as horns blare and metal crashes means nothing is spent on destroying vehicles, but it’s all so well done that the viewer feels like they’re experiencing a Bourne Identity-esque pileup.

This, paired with Malina’s righteously angry determination to survive, makes for a hugely satisfying ending to a taut little thriller that deserves to not be lost in the rush hour of streaming movies. (Alright, that was the last car pun.)

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