The Gorge Review

It’s physically impossible not to fall desperately in love with Anya Taylor Joy, even when a vast, impenetrable gorge separates you from her. So it goes for Miles Teller’s Levi, a highly trained American operative who accepts a mission from a secretive military higher-up named Bartholomew (Sigourney Weaver) to stand guard on one side of a massive gorge.

It doesn’t take long for Derrickson to establish the parameters of The Gorge. Flown into an unknown location, Levi relieves J.D (Sope Dirisu) of his post and begins his year-long Gorge-watching stint. Information about the gorge is need to know, but before leaving, J.D. gives Levi a quick rundown of his duties, revealing that the watch doesn’t involve keeping people out of said titular space, it’s about keeping what’s inside the gorge contained. J.D. also explains that situated directly across from the outpost, across the immeasurable chasm, is Levi’s Eastern counterpart and the only other person for miles around, Drasa (Anya Taylor Joy).

The pair settle into their individual isolation. They maintain the bombs and motion-activated guns that cover the perimeter of the gorge, keep watch for activity armed with their healthily stocked artilleries and military-grade telescopes, and send out monthly radio reports to their respective countries. It’s plain sailing, until, on the night of her birthday, Drasa breaks the strict no-contact regulations. Using whiteboards and pens in the same style as Taylor Swift’s You Belong With Me music video, she initiates a conversation, which leads to flirting, which leads to feelings, which leads to Levi foolishly creating a make-shift zipline across it.

After dinner, dancing, and a passionate night with Drasa, Levi is heading back to his respective side of the gorge when a nightmarish creature activates one of the bombs. This rips apart the zipline and sends Levi plummeting into the murky depths of the gorge. Without a moment’s hesitation, Drasa, too, dives into the gorge, hoping she can rescue Levi from the horrors within. The film follows the pair as they fight to stay alive and learn of the real reasons they have been summoned to the gorge.

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The film is simplistic but surprisingly fun. It’s a treat to watch Teller and Joy flirt from across a gorge whilst playing a pair of highly skilled tough cookies. Derrickson pulls from a blend of genres, constructing believable ‘want what you can’t have’ frustration and story beats. He feeds us just enough information about the gorge in question to keep us on our toes as romance blossoms across the chasm. Teller and Joy are inventive in creating tension with limited dialogue, and despite their distance, shape some compelling chemistry. The romance elements of the script, alongside its Valentine’s release date, invite love language subtext into the mix. Aside from being a scary gorge, the enigma of the impenetrable space serves as the space that can grow between two people. Be it physical distance or the space into which we throw all our problems; the gorge represents the darker elements of a relationship. Although it’s not a conventional love story, the movie’s romantic charm reminds us that somewhere out there, someone is willing to dive in head first to get to you.

Things become a little sticky when Teller and Joy get inside the gorge. As the mystery unravels, so, too, does the film’s promise. The main issue lies with the creatures living inside the gorge. The question mark hanging over the gorge is much more compelling than what actually lies inside, and the film, unfortunately, reveals its hand way too early. The inner zone of the gorge is close in appearance to The Shimmer from Alex Garland’s Annihilation. However, the landscape isn’t examined with the same intensity, and all curiosity about the mysterious space fizzles away the deeper the characters venture inside. The creatures inhabiting the gorge are also left somewhat undeveloped. A blend of ugly CGI and lack of creative design means the creatures – which look like a blend of Game of Thrones’s White Walkers and Marvel’s Groot – end up feeling pretty incidental and questionable.

Ultimately, the movie fails to deliver on its great premise. Lazy storytelling means computers and old video footage found by Teller and Joy from within secret laboratories explain away the gorge’s secrets in a few simple lines of exposition. The purpose of the gorge is dropped, unexplained and unexplored in favour of videogame-style action sequences and fights. Anya Taylor Joy and Miles Teller are the standouts, both soft and tough in equal measure. It’s fun to watch them go into the gorge guns blazing, but their efforts feel let down by the film’s missteps and unoriginal ideas.

The Gorge is made of fun stuff, and it’s an extremely watchable Valentine’s alternative if super-sweet romantic comedies aren’t your bag. All accolades go to Miles Teller and Anya Taylor Joy, who are gorge-ous screen presences, even when you’re watching them through binoculars from across an ominous gorge.