Alone (2020 thriller film)

Alone is a 2020 American psychological thriller film directed by John Hyams, from a screenplay by Mattias Olsson. The film stars Jules Willcox as a young woman who desperately tries to escape a deranged and bloodthirsty psychopath (Marc Menchaca) in the wilderness. It was released in the United States on September 18, 2020, by Magnet Releasing.

Plot
While traveling a mountainous highway to relocate houses, recent widow Jessica is brake-checked by a defensive slow driving man in a Jeep. When she attempts to pass him, he speeds up, nearly causing her to hit a semi-trailer truck. He then tailgates her until he veers off, using a different exit. She later sees the Jeep pass down the road as she fills her car at a gas station. After spending the night in a motel, Jessica is attempting to leave, but is abruptly startled by the man, who awkwardly apologizes for his behavior. Moments later, while still en route, she is forced to stop when she sees the Jeep blocking the road. The man, with his arm in a sling, feigning injury, tells her he has broken down and asks for a ride but Jessica declines and drives off.

Later that night, she sees him again at a rest stop and flees, but her moving trailer begins to fishtail, and she crashes. She finds the trailer with a slashed tire. The man appears, breaks into her car and drugs her. Jessica wakes up in his cabin where he has locked her inside a barren room. As she pleads for her release, he alludes that she is not his first kidnapping, and forces her to tell him that her husband died by suicide.

The next morning, she hears the man leaving, manages to escape from the room and hides in a closet when her captor returns. She overhears him speaking to his wife on the phone, lying about where he is and that he'll be back soon. When he searches for Jessica, she escapes the cabin, and he pursues her. The man catches up with Jessica after she badly injures her foot, and she jumps into a rapid flowing river to escape.

Wet, cold and in pain, Jessica stumbles through the forest until she meets a hunter named Robert, who gives her food, shoes and a ride. As they are driving, their path is blocked by a fallen tree. The kidnapper appears as they try to clear the path, and tells Robert that Jessica is his sister who has suffered a psychotic episode due to her husband's death. After Robert demands the man's phone to call the police, the man attacks him and then kills him with his hunting rifle.

Jessica runs from the scene and another chase ensues. She hides in a cave at night to get out of the rain, but the man spots her and fires, hitting her in the shoulder. She then hides in a small pond. The man tries to goad her into revealing herself, but is unsuccessful and leaves. The next morning while the man is disposing of Robert's body, Jessica climbs into his car, steals his phone and hides in the Jeep's trunk area when he returns. While the man drives, Jessica calls 911, then leaps into the back seat and attacks the man, striking him multiple times in the head with a tire iron. He wrestles her away and in doing so, crashes the car, flipping it over.

Dazed, Jessica climbs out and spots a search and rescue helicopter. She runs after it into a clearing where she uses his phone to call his wife and tell her the truth. The man, whose name has been revealed as Sam, follows Jessica into the clearing; she puts the phone on speaker and taunts him with it. Enraged that Jessica has exposed his true nature to his family, Sam lunges at her with a knife and a fight ensues. Jessica ultimately overcomes him and fatally stabs Sam. She watches him die and then lies beside him exhausted as the helicopter descends.

Cast

 * Jules Willcox as Jessica
 * Marc Menchaca as Sam
 * Anthony Heald as Robert
 * Jonathan Rosenthal as Eric

Production
In December 2017, it was announced that Jules Willcox would star in the film. The film is a remake of Olsson's 2011 Swedish film Gone.

Box office, VOD, and streaming
Alone was released in the United States on September 18, 2020 in theaters and on video-on-demand. It grossed $182,473 from 173 theaters in its opening weekend. It was also the most rented film on Google Play, fourth on FandangoNow, and ninth on Apple TV. In its second weekend the film ranked third at Google Play, fourth at FandangoNow, and sixth at Apple TV, then its third weekend finished second at Google Play, third at FandangoNow, eighth at AppleTV, and tenth at Spectrum. The film ranked in Netflix global top 10 chart in 2024 for the week of March 11-17.

Critical response
On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100 based on nine critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times wrote: "This minimalist survival thriller unfolds with such elegant simplicity and single-minded momentum that its irritations are easily excused." Kevin Crust of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "Top-tier performances from Jules Willcox and Marc Menchaca provide 98 minutes of heart-pounding diversion." Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of The A.V. Club gave it a B grade, writing: "there's something deeply appealing about an already stripped-down cat-and-mouse scenario that becomes dirtier and more elemental as it goes along, tracing a devolutionary arc from the rules of the road to primeval combat."

Odie Henderson of RogerEbert.com was more critical of the film, giving it a score of 2/4 stars and writing that it "gives us little reason to care if our hero makes it out alive, but I have to give credit where it's due: Jessica isn't written as some damsel in distress."