Brightwood Review: A Microbudget Masterpiece

Brightwood is a film that achieves the impossible on a tiny budget. Gripping, enthralling and expertly executed giving filmmakers who count every penny of a multi-million-pound budget some food for thought.

I’ve seen films with 8 figure budgets that don’t have the same execution as Brightwood as a simple yet intriguing premise combined with a majority (for the most part) 2-actor cast to deliver efficiency within simplicity.

The synopsis for Brightwood reads as follows:

At times both surreal and frightening, this American Indie film follows a bickering couple who find themselves trapped in a confusing and dangerous time loop.

A couple are jogging in the woods, arguing, and taking smiling photos to show on social media before going back to arguing with one another (a lovely wink and nod to the fakeness of social media) fed up with marriage they end up jogging into a time loop that comes right back to one another.

Brightwood is like a giant metaphor for separation anxiety as no matter how far they run away from one another they come right back to each other.

A weird little metaphor for marriage there as no matter how they try to escape, you’re locked down, shackled and right next to this person you can barely tolerate which is the story of many marriages that I’ve had the unpleasantness of experiencing around me over the years.

A time loop as endless as the rings of their fingers as our couple Jen and Dan find there is no way out. But what makes Brightwood interesting is the development of the characters as they’re experiencing this time warp.

What becomes the downfall of Brightwood is sadly the restriction of that one-location, two-actor set-up. Only a handful of films over time have managed to last the duration with one main focus character and one location from start to finish without getting stale, 127 Hours starring James Franco and Buried starring Ryan Reynolds to name a couple but sadly Brightwood does drag on a little longer than needed.

It’s hard to keep focused on what is happening when it’s pretty much the same over and over and whilst the premise is brilliant we’re suddenly finding our attention span waning and sadly that’s where Brightwood becomes Dullwood as time goes on.

An amazing concept but it just needed to be a bit shorter in runtime to really deliver the entirety of the well-constructed script effectively.