Weapons
It was a tragedy which robbed a community of the lives of seventeen children, no answers and no explanations why the entire third-grade class of teacher Justine Gandy save for one child, Alex Lilly, rose from their beds as one at precisely 2:17 in the morning and ran into the night, their arms outstretched as if flying, dreamlike as if soaring to freedom, their exit captured on door cameras but not their unknown destination.
Miss Gandy the factor which links them all, no other child in the school having run away and with no clue as to why Alex was spared or immune, it is upon her that suspicion falls, the police unable to find any lead or motive but the families of those whose children are missing needing to blame someone in the absence of anything more substantive, calling her a witch and driving her back to her old flame, the comforting embrace of vodka.
Written and directed by Zach Cregger and told in a series of first-person narratives of many of the key players in the story, overlapping and dovetailing and eventually providing elucidation and a brutal conclusion, Weapons stars Wolf Man’s Julia Garner as Justine, any past misdeed or overstep no matter how minor or inconsequential dug up and magnified, the monster who works at Maybrook Elementary School.
Concerned for the wellbeing of Alex (Cary Christopher), hoping that the reason he was spared might hold a clue, for reasons of propriety Julia is forbidden from contacting him by Principal Marcus Miller (Doctor Strange’s Benedict Wong), forcing her to conduct her own investigation, while grieving contractor Archer Graff (Infinity War’s Josh Brolin) targets her, her only ally McCarron County police officer Paul Morgan (Solo’s Alden Ehrenreich), married and with his own drinking problem.
Set in an obviously affluent suburb of large houses and apparently happy families, even in its title Weapons parallels the aftermath of the particularly American pastime of high school shootings, the accusations and the recriminations, the police helpless, the guilt of the survivors, the need for a closure which is not forthcoming, the blaming of anyone who is seen to be an outsider in the close-knit community.
Justine forced to do the wrong thing because there is no right choice, unable to be an obedient bystander, creating problems and engendering further animosity, it is her refusal to be submissive in the face of small town paranoia and hostility which is the trigger which exacerbates the situation explosively when she finds an obviously wealthy house in darkness, the windows papered over, the owners sat in the gloom, unresponsive.
Like Longlegs from last year, introducing Nicolas Cage with no pretence other than that he is the monster at the heart of the dark web, Weapons plays the same hideous game, a leering clown-like face first seen in a nightmare of tangled bedclothes, a figure in depths of the forest, Carnivàle’s Amy Madigan magnificent but making no attempt to be unobtrusive as eccentric Aunt Gladys, pushing her way first into Alex’s home then school meetings where she answers questions but says nothing, cold and malignant and in absolute control yet oddly sympathetic, a strange creature to be pitied who cares nothing for anything but the pursuit and execution of powers.
An uneasy mystery with more in common with Night of the Eagle than Cregger’s own Barbarian, The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street for the Netflix generation, despite its methodical pacing Weapons is engaging throughout, a jigsaw of broken people attempting to fit their pieces together into a whole while oblivious to the shadow which has fallen over them and seeking the comfort of easy answers, puppets manipulated to turn on each other rather than recognise and oust the evil lurking in plain sight.
Weapons is currently on general release and also screening in IMAX
