TERESA Palmer gives a stand-out performance in this nail-bitingly tense psychological thriller from Australian director Cate Shortland (Somersault, Lore).
It follows Clare (Palmer), an Australian photojournalist and tourist who one day decided to pack all her possessions into storage and head off on a once-in-a-lifetime extended trip to Europe. Ending up in Berlin, she wanders around trying to capture the heart of a city.
Not long after arriving there she meets a handsome and seemingly very nice English teacher named Andi (Max Reimelt) with whom she feels an immediate connection. After agreeing to go home with him and they share a steamy night together, she wakes up in his bed to find him gone and a giant metal bar keeping the door firmly locked. She soon realises Andi isn’t interested in letting her go.
Kidnap thrillers aren’t a new thing and ostensibly Shortland’s film fits into that familiar mould. But the power of Berlin Syndrome is how it contorts those inherent audience expectations to give us something unsettling, unpredict-able and entirely compelling.
There’s meritorious skill in her taut direction, mixing tense close-ups, sudden editing cuts and dream-like slow-mo to amplify Clare’s intense state of distress and discomfort. It’s therefore never what you would call an easy watch, not least in the fact that it blends threat and distrust with lust and captive-captor dependence.
A constant state of disorientating threat looms as Shortland expertly draws out the dread and prolongs the agony, while giving us flickers of hope that Clare hangs on to. This is exemplified in the unique score by Bryony Marks.
It examines things like the nature of obsession, the effect of toxic relationships and what it means to be a victim. Occasionally the film dips its toe into the overblown but for the most part it’s a well-written and well-crafted film that shrewdly weaves those and many other themes into its twisty-turny narrative. It’s harsh but never exploitative viewing that doesn’t leave an iota of tension untapped.
FOUR STARS
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