Movie Review: "Anxiety" (2024)
Anxiety Movie Review
Written by Stuart D. Monroe
Directed by Eric Stanze
Written by Eric Stanze, Jackie Kelly, and Jason Christ
2024, 97 minutes, Not Rated
Released Fall 2024
Starring:
Jackie Kelly as Renee / Connie
Jason Christ as Alan
Marcella Miller as Abbey
Chaz Minner as Sage
Eric Stanze as Paxton Caine
DJ Vivona as Desk Jockey
Jim Ousley as Detective
Review:
To many of us, the pandemic of 2020 now feels like a fever dream- vivid enough to still fuck with you, but distant enough not to be kicking in your front door anymore. There are signs all over the place now of the change wrought by that terrible time, but it’s in the past. We don’t have to worry about it anymore. Right? Surely not.
As for me, I can’t get my mind off of it because I sat down to watch writer-director Eric Stanze’s newest feature, Anxiety, and I was transported back to 2020’s darkest days thanks to stark imagery, a blitzkrieg of news footage, and a compelling human story that could easily be any one of us.
That’s kind of how it feels…
Renee (Jackie Kelly; Tennessee Gothic) is a recovering alcoholic with a troubled past. She’s only a few months sober when the Covid-19 pandemic strikes and shuts the world down. Left alone with her own mind, the addiction demon quickly reasserts its authority and goes to work on Renee’s already damaged and anxiety-ridden psyche. As a video editor, she’s used to living a solitary life, but Renee isn’t prepared for the erosion of her sanity a bit at a time as the shelter-at-home order lengthens and the need for a drink becomes an all-out nightmare.
Anxiety is one of the most aptly-titled films you’ll ever see as it induces buckets worth of the stuff. Remember when I said 2020 felt like a fever dream? Anxiety captures the essence of the fever dream perfectly with a mix of jarring visual symbolism and real, raw human angst that escalates with every passing scene. The overall effect is such that you really taste Renee’s growing anxiousness about the world around her and the handful of people in her inner circle.
That might not sound much like horror on the surface, but it damn sure is. Sure, there’s no masked killer or drippy monster to contend with, but we all know that the truly horrific stuff is the shit that comes crashing down out of nowhere and utterly wrecks the daily workings of your everyday life. Anxiety is instantly relatable because it not only deals with universal subject matter that we can all empathize with; it also does a stellar job of tackling the subject of addiction and the very real powers of outright hallucination that those demons possess.
Abandon hope all ye who enter here
The pacing is unnervingly anticipatory in a way that makes it a bit hard to catch your breath. That’s thanks in large part to the deft hand of writer-director-actor Eric Stanze (In Memory Of) to be sure, but it also owes much to the tour-de-force performance of Jackie Kelly as she owns that role and layers it with so much humanity. Big props to Jason Christ (Ice From the Sun) as Alan…his video chat relationship with Renee endears you to him as he steals scenes.
Anxiety feels like a bit of a hallucination from start to finish. It’s a film that comes with a built-in relatability and a moral to the story that makes it a hell of a cautionary tale, one that’s as tried and true as it gets: everyone out there is fighting some kind of mental battle (that you probably know nothing about), so in times of crisis tread extra carefully. You could be broken down just as easily as Renee.
As more and more films come out that deal directly with that dark time in American history, Anxiety will stand the test of time as a tale of just how dark and nasty the real world can get even when there isn’t a monster or supernatural element to be found anywhere.
Grade:
4.5 out of 5.0 stars
