Entertainment / TIFF 2021: Riz Ahmed Shines In His Latest Psychological Thriller “Encounter”

TIFF 2021: Riz Ahmed Shines In His Latest Psychological Thriller “Encounter”

Entertainment Dec 10, 2021

by Matthew Currie

Riz Ahmed, fresh off his incredible, Oscar-nominated turn in Sound of Metal is back in a very different sort of film. Encounter, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this past September, finds the British powerhouse starring as a disgraced, recently paroled U.S. soldier who abducts his two young sons from the home of his estranged wife and hits the road, telling the boys that microscopic aliens have secretly begun taking over the planet.

The last time Amazon walked away from the Toronto International Film Festival with the rights to a Riz Ahmed-led feature, 2019’s Sound of Metal, the streaming service scored a couple of Oscars — for Sound and Editing — plus, nominations for some of the gala’s most prestigious trophies: Best Picture, Original Screenplay and, yes, Actor.

Those are big shoes to fill for Encounter, and though we wouldn’t bet on the same sort of accolades, it is an intriguing little genre mashup with plenty to recommend.

Debuting on Prime Video this Friday, December 10 (and currently in the midst of a limited theatrical run), this one finds Ahmed playing ex-Marine Malik Khan, who, after a couple years in prison, breaks into the home of his ex-wife (Janina Gavankar) and absconds with their two sons (Lucien-River Chauhan, Aditya Geddada) in the middle of the night. To get the boys in the car, he tells them they’re going on a cross-country road trip while mom and her new husband (Misha Collins) head off on a ski trip. But soon enough, he reveals the truth: our planet is being taken over by microscopic alien parasites, transmitted through bug bites —and mom is among the infected. So Malik is taking his boys to safety at a remote research base — constantly coating them in bug spray along the way — while he figures out how to fight this secret invasion.

Bobby (Geddada), the rambunctious younger sibling, goes along with it. But Jay (Chauhan), while loving and trusting his dad, is just old enough to look at this very unusual story with something approaching skepticism. Meanwhile, the feds and Malik’s very supportive, very concerned parole officer Hattie (Octavia Spencer) scramble to track them all down. The question that hangs in the air, of course: is our hero really a hero, or a delusional kidnapper?

All told, the movie is part paranoia-soaked sci-fi conspiracy thriller, part poignant road trip drama and part harrowing character study — of a character who, alien invasion or not, has reached the end of his rope.

Ahmed anchors it all with another searing, achingly human performance — by turns embodying the torment of a man who’s lost everything, the ferocious temper and psychological damage that got him locked up to begin with, and the easy charm of a dad who loves nothing more than joking around with his kids.

Meanwhile, British writer-director Michael Pearce has assembled a visual stunner — from stark, eerie shots of insects crawling out from light fixtures and cracks in the wall, to a microscopic view of an alien critter working its way into a bloodstream, to those gorgeously shot desert expanses Malik and his boys traverse while carrying out their “mission.”

The problem with the film actually lies in the thing that’s most conceptually intriguing about it: the genre-mashing. The tense thriller and the loose, thoughtful road trip drama, both compelling in their own right, tend to undermine each other, leading to pacing problems and giving the narrative a meandering, disjointed feel.

Nonetheless, this is a commendably offbeat feature, with the sort of powerful lead performance we’ve come to expect from Mr. Ahmed.

Main Image Photo Credit: Prime Video/www.tiff.net

Matthew Currie

Author

A long-standing entertainment journalist, Currie is a graduate of the Professional Writing program at Toronto’s York University. He has spent the past number of years working as a freelancer for ANOKHI and for diverse publications such as Sharp, TV Week, CAA’s Westworld and BC Business. Currie ...

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TIFF 2021: Riz Ahmed Shines In His Latest Psychological Thriller “Encounter”

by Matthew Currie

Matthew Currie

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