Movie Review: 'Centigrade' is a High Grade Survivalist Thriller

Centigrade belongs to the sub-genre of survivalist thriller. This sub-genre runs the gamut from Oscar-worthy, Best Picture candidates such as Danny Boyle's 127 Hours to Blake Lively's beachy, cheesy, shark flick, The Shallows. Centigrade ranks a little closer to 127 Hours in terms of quality, though not nearly that film's equal in artistry or drama. Rather, it's just that both films are quite serious in tone and that seriousness keeps Centigrade from being just a genre movie like The Shallows or a slightly more apt shark movie comparison, Open Water.

That film, Open Water, told the story of a couple on a scuba diving trip who stay underwater too long and end up being abandoned on accident by their tour group. Left alone in the middle of the oceans with dwindling energy and air supply, the couple bicker, cry and run through the five stages of grief while literal sharks swim around them, as if assessing a buffet.

The shark in Centigrade is less openly malevolent. The shark in this case is the frozen tundra of Norway where the weather can be as unpredictable and dangerous as any wild animal or predatory fish. Feet of snow can fall in mere hours, temperatures can run from well above to well below zero within a day, and it's not unheard of to find people dead, trapped in cars that became tombs in the midst of a freak storm.

That's what is facing our protagonists, Naomi (Genesis Rodriguez) and Matt (Vincent Piazza), after an ice storm caused Matt to abandon plans to drive through the night non-stop to get to their hotel. Instead, Matt pulled over to the side of the road and assumed a few hours sleep behind the wheel would do wonders and that the storm would pass and make driving safer.

That's what Matt thought would happen but it is not what happened. Instead, while Matt and Naomi slept, a freak blizzard struck and buried their vehicle too the roof. Not only that, but the ice formed over the snow making it an almost cement like frozen wall that prevents them from climbing out the windows or the sunroof of their frozen rental car.

Using the rental car emergency kit, they find candles, matches and little else to get them by. They have a modest amount of food which they do well to ration but there is one bigger issue: Naomi is 9 months pregnant. You're probably now asking yourselves why, at this time, so close to the birth of their first child, are Matt and Naomi, Americans, traveling in rural Norway? There is a reason why they are there and it's not any essential secret but I am not going to spoil it.

In a movie like Centigrade, where there are only two characters and one setting, if I reveal too much about the character dynamics, I might effect your perspective of the movie too much. Thus, no more plot or character description. Part of the joy of a survivalist thriller is the mental box ticking that we all do when we watch movies like this, that math we do on exactly what we might do that the characters are not doing. It's part of the fun but the other side of the fun of a thriller like Centigrade is understanding these characters and why they choose to do the things they do.

Both Genesis Rodriguez and Vincent Piazza deliver tremendous performances. Unafraid of being disliked, each goes for the jugular in scenes where they reveal secrets under stress and make life altering mistakes in their attempts to stay alive. These are un-glamorous performances that had the actors working 16 to 20 hour days inside one car location and dieting so that they could look the part of two people who spent almost a month trapped in a car in the snow in Norway.

That's not a spoiler, really. Centigrade is based on a true story. A female writer went on a book tour while more than 8 months pregnant and wound up with her husband and soon to be baby, trapped in a vehicle igloo for 24 days with only the supplies and clothes that they had with them at the time. It's a harrowing story and somehow not one that is terribly uncommon in the oft frozen tundra of Norway.

According to co-writer and director Brendan Walsh, the story is actually parts of several stories with the pregnant writer story at the center and incidents from several other trapped in a snow bank stories used to flesh out the movie and give it more incident and character business than existed in the writer's true story. Don't misunderstand, her story is harrowing and life altering, but this is still a movie and, a thriller at that, so some artistic license was necessary.

Other than it's rather odd yet generic title, Centigrade is quite a good survivalist drama. With little space to work, Rodriguez and Piazza wring every last bit of drama and excitement from familiar incidents such as the help that almost comes to the rescue to that third act emotional breakdown that always comes in a story such as this and is more often than not preceding a scene in which a character will make a crazy gambit for escape and fail miserably, delivering yet another gut punch of drama.

These familiar elements are well done enough that I didn't mind experience them for the umpteenth time. I've often said, if you are going to use a trope, at least use it well and Centigrade uses survival movie tropes well, deploying them as needed with precision, confidence and a feeling of necessity. This isn't lazy reliance on familiar beats but rather, it's like recycling, taking something old and worn and making it new and fresh again.

Centigrade will be released for streaming rental on Friday, August 28th.