Worried about Vivien's growing independence but too fond of her to throw her immediately to the wolves, Dr. Miro counsels her, "When a girl is obedient and sweet, the world cannot help but love her." With so few joys to discover inside these walls, even Viv lives for the idea that someone on the outside will eventually reward her with love. Executive producer: James Weyman 7 people found this helpful. By. Cast: Katie Douglas, Celina Martin, Sara Canning, Peter Outerbridge, Alexis Whelan Sign up here. good film. Echoing the oppressive atmosphere of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ ‘Level 16’ is a tense sci-fi thriller set in a dystopian boarding school for girls. Director-screenwriter: Danishka Esterhazy Our two leads are Vivien (Katie Douglas) and Sophia (Celina Martin), who each develop different approaches to their restrictive lifestyle. It keeps the viewer guessing, albeit sometimes a little too much, and presents a dreary world where societal shortcomings have allowed the powerful to enact their wishes upon the virtually powerless—in that vague way, not too unlike some of the world today. The Hollywood Reporter, LLC is a subsidiary of Prometheus Global Media, LLC. On a budget. Curiosity is the first. And while fans of the genre will absolutely appreciate the surreal gloom, for most others Level 16 will come in at a level below an average "Twilight Zone" episode. And while fans of the genre will absolutely appreciate the surreal gloom, for most others Level 16 will come in at a level below an average "Twilight Zone" episode. |, July 16, 2019 Is there something supernatural going on? Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The Moon & Antarctica Turns 20, From the Vaults of Streaming Hell: Santa Jaws. Drawing on the disturbing hermetic worlds of Innocence, Never Let Me Go and The Handmaid's Tale, Level 16 places us in a supposedly educational environment that is rearing meek, docile illiterates for a purpose that will only gradually become clear. We want to hear what you have to say but need to verify your email. Level 16 delivers drawn-out scenes of amped-up tension, and it benefits hugely from the acting abilities of its two young leads, Douglas and Martin. |, March 11, 2019 We won’t be able to verify your ticket today, but it’s great to know for the future. Please enter your email address and we will email you a new password. Sixteen-year-old Vivien (Katie Douglas) is trapped in The Vestalis Academy, a prison-like boarding school, keeping to herself and sticking her neck out for no one. All rights reserved. To the other girls, Vivien is a strict perfectionist who meticulously obeys the rules and avoids personal connections. Regal Level 16 feels like a YA novel adaptation, retaining the darker themes that often get toned down for Hollywood teen movies. |. Sophia, who has a serious visual impairment, is more of an outcast. While Level 16 may lack the prestige of a Margaret Atwood adaptation such as The Handmaid's Tale, it warrants equal consideration as a work of formidable feminist fury. Initial hints of a Mean Girls-meets-Lord of the Flies complication don't come to much in this straightforward pic... Level 16 is about atmosphere rather than all-out scares, and it's much to the story's credit that we remain on the hook right up until the end. From the opening frames of this smart sci-fi story, we are thrust into the perfectly realized microcosmos of the Vestalis Academy. They’re told the outside world is a toxic wasteland and they’re being raised for adoption by wealthy families, but there’s clearly something weirder afoot. and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango. Is the school secretly an elaborate sex-trafficking operation? Five Years Later: The Best Music of 2013. Check box if your review contains spoilers, Sixteen-year-old Vivien (Katie Douglas) is trapped in The Vestalis Academy, a prison-like boarding school, keeping to herself and sticking her neck out for no one. Get the freshest reviews, news, and more delivered right to your inbox! MomK: Here's one that compares more than the sport and action of the movie. The world in Level 16 feels like it was created because it's trendy right now to make art about repressed women. Just confirm how you got your ticket. © 2020 The Hollywood Reporter The entirety of Level 16 rests on the relationship between the female leads, while flirting with social norms of femininity and beauty. Laura Dzubay is a writer specializing in short fiction, long fiction and articles about all the music and movies she loves. Sitemap | Soph has been an outcast ever since, and has made some discoveries in her isolation. A dystopian prison film with a conceit designed for Handmaid's Tale fans, Danishka Esterhazy's Level 16 imagines a "school" in which girls are raised to be perfectly obedient and pristine for the families they're told will someday adopt them. | Rating: 3.5/5 At its least, Level 16 ranks as a very good episode of Black Mirror but at its best, it succeeds as a hybrid of the kind of dystopic paranoia we get from Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale with touches of sanitized malevolence from Stanley Kubrick. | Rating: 3.5/5 The look of the film is sterile and monochromatic, as is the acting and the mood. Sign up here. ‘Level 16’ (2018) Movie Review. Forgot your password? Plucky, rough-around-the-edges thriller... Low budget, but it has an engaging sci-fi story. The result is a chilling journey through a grey world of social tension, which achieves its at times overstated goal of thriller-inflicted social commentary through successful acting, well-conceived plot twists, and thorough attention to scene. | Top Critics (3) Its drawbacks arise when would-be nuances take on over-the-top proportions, and the world starts to feel less like an apt representation of important social discussions and more like a strange foray into a landscape of suffering and not-quite-explained hate. What begins as an almost typical YA narrative takes a turn into some truly pitch black directions. Passive aggression and the threat of tattletales are the worst these girls offer each other, though: For as long as they can remember, they've been indoctrinated with social-engineering videos whose biggest mission is to make them passive. |, February 27, 2019 |, March 29, 2019 and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango. Armed with surprisingly strong themes around beauty and vanity, Level 16 never quite reaches its potential thanks to slow pacing and lacklustre writing. The look of the film is sterile and monochromatic, as is the acting and the mood. Sophia opens Vivien’s eyes to some dark truths about the school, forcing her to take action for the first time in her life. Copyright © Fandango. She is mostly from Indiana and enjoys UltimateGuitar.com and pretending it's fall year-round. More subtle than a straightforward story about adolescent rebellion, it focuses much of its runtime on how the girls learn to police their own behavior. The exact extent of their application or lack thereof is left unclear, along with what the audience is to make of this social commentary, concentrated even within its own realm. |, May 13, 2019 Their lives are dominated by an exaggerated version of the restrictions that girls face in real life: a constant pressure to be modest, feminine, and spiritually and physically “clean.”. All rights reserved. | Rating: 3/5 Just leave us a message here and we will work on getting you verified. But as it sputters toward its curtain-exposing conclusion, "Level 16" stays disappointingly thin, both as a dark-future cautionary saga and a genre exercise. and the Terms and Policies, Both of the leads give strong performances, with Douglas showing the conflicted feelings bubbling beneath Vivien’s picture-perfect surface. |, March 12, 2019 Together, they work to uncover a much darker and deeper plot and must navigate their way out of the Academy before it’s too late. On that front, it definitely works well enough to warrant a viewing. O Brother, Where Art Thou? |, March 1, 2019 Composers: Menalon, Joseph Murray, Lodewijk Vos Together the girls embark on a dangerous search to uncover the horrifying truth behind their. Vestalis' true agenda should remain a surprise, but stifling curiosity and physical boldness is essential to the methods of headmaster Brixil (Sara Canning) and the staff physician Dr. Miro (Peter Outerbridge).

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