Hello road! Horror/thrillers are made or broken by their endings, although some are so good in every other respect that you can forgive an ending that doesn’t live up to its promise. I might have to think about this one for awhile because it feels like it is 90% great and 10% both heavy handed and enigmatic.

It’s a great premise. Parents, Maddie (Rosamond Pike) and Frank (Mathew Rhys) receive a middle of the night call from their daughter Alice (Megan McDonnell). We can see from the detritus of a suddenly abandoned dinner that there has been a drama earlier in the night. Alice it seems has taken her father‘s car and driven off into the night after some big argument.

When she calls, in a panic, she has crashed her car after hitting a girl who has run out from a dark and isolated forest. Maddie and Frank hop in the car and set off into the dark to try and find her. Maddie is a paramedic and so, reassured that Alice has called emergency services, talks her through performing CPR on the victim. This is where the cracks in the marriage and their parenting begin to appear.

Frank is quick to make excuses for Alice’s behaviour, and we can see this has been lifelong. Maddie wants her to do the right thing, although she’s a bit too easily swayed into trying to cover up what has happened.

Director Babak Anvari (Under the Shadow) plays out almost the entire film in the car, with Alice’s presence being a disembodied voice over the phone. There is tension, and we can imagine what is happening in the forest with Alice just by the sounds and the voices over the phone.

It’s a really interesting exploration of permissive parenting and where the fault lies in young adults who have never had to take responsibility for their actions. Anvari starts to add a more spooky element when another car appears and a woman’s voice can be heard over the phone, trying to find out what has happened.

In some ways this works, but the woman seems to be voicing some pretty heavy handed messaging that is partially explained at the end of the film. I’m not sure this really works in the context of the horror genre as it is such an intellectual premise rather than a visceral one.

Pike and Rhys are excellent as the buttoned up and stressed out parents, you really believe in where they have got to in their lives.