By Webster Tilton The film ‘Hold the Dark’ tells a story that at first appears bleak, savage and dark. But by the end the viewer is made to understand that this story is something much more frightening and sobering than that; it is indifferent. In 2004, a retired naturalist and wolf expert named...

By Webster Tilton

The film ‘Hold the Dark’ tells a story that at first appears bleak, savage and dark. But by the end the viewer is made to understand that this story is something much more frightening and sobering than that; it is indifferent.

In 2004, a retired naturalist and wolf expert named Russell Core travels to Alaska after receiving a letter from a mother, in childlike handwriting, asking him if he will come and look for her missing son who she believes was taken by wolves. Core makes the trip and meets the mother, Medora Slone. She entertains no hope; not of finding her son alive, or of anything else. Her husband who promised to never leave her went to war in Iraq leaving her to care for a sick child alone in a place that is both stunningly beautiful, and painfully lonely.

Slone asks Core if he has any family. Core tells her that he is estranged from both his wife and daughter. He has no one waiting for him. Spoilers ahead. My verdict, up front is this: Watch this movie, be aware that it is violent, dark, and somewhat disturbing. But it achieves these things because it is very, very good.

Core discovers the boy dead in his mother’s basement and she flees. In Iraq the boy’s father, Vernon Slone, casually kills one of his own men who is assaulting a local. He returns home and learns of his son’s death. When police at the morgue assure him his wife will be caught, Vernon calmly murders them before stealing his son’s body with the help of an Innuit friend named Cheeon. Cheeon assures Vernon that he understands what he needs to do and promises to buy him some time, which he does by attacking the police with a machine gun when they come to Cheeon’s house to ask where Vernon is and why he killed the officers.

Before the gunfight Cheeon (more or less) explains to the police chief why Vernon did what he did and why he is helping. Go watch the movie to understand it completely, it’s worth it. It is enough to say here that wolves do not have a moral code.

And therein lies the point; Human nature, and the world in general, is savage. Cheeon despises the police but he kills them only because they’re in Vernon’s way. After all morality is fake. In nature anything is permissible. Only Vernon and Cheeon (and possibly Medora) understand this.

As things progress we become increasingly aware that the people tracking Vernon aren’t equipped to deal with him. Not because he is a well trained and deadly soldier, but because there simply isn’t anything he won’t do. The ending isn’t ambiguous, but it is (deliberately) unresolved.

Don’t let this scare you. Hold the Dark creates an atmosphere so potent, with high quality performances and excellent production value, that you will be pondering it long after you’re done watching.