'BERLIN SYNDROME'.......YET ANOTHER CAPTIVE AUDIENCE......

Berlin Syndrome (2017)    What can we say........yawn.

           Another entry in that singularly peculiar sub-genre: the young girl held captive by her seemingly normal-on-the-surface but in reality, deeply disturbed captor.

            Novelists and filmmakers periodically return to this basic story.......it's a never ending wellspring for horror movie creators.......thriller novelists, on the other hand, prefer to concentrate on the aftermath of the captivity. (Even 'Gone Girl's Amazing Amy spends some time, albeit brief, imprisoned by a fervent admirer...)

             Mainstream Hollywood launched the sex-slave genre with William Wyler's 1965 adaptation of the John Fowles novel "The Collector"......but we don't think this came from any great interest by Wyler in psycho-sexual depravity........for him, it was just Standard Operating Procedure to make a movie out of whatever book hit the top of the New York Times bestseller lists.,,,,(we get the feeling if "Green Eggs And Ham" had sold more copies than "The Collector", Wyler would have filmed that one instead....)

             Subsequent screenwriters and directors plunged into the genre with more abandon.....after all, it contains the key ingredients to hold an audience.....a vulnerable heroine, a creepy villain, overwhelming suspense (will she or won't she escape?), the constant threat of violence.....and the genre's prime directive and  raison d'etre......the continuous rape of the obsessive stalker's heart's desire.....

              This film, an Australian-German co-production, has a backpacking photographer in Berlin (Teresa Palmer) falling into a one night stand with a Berlin English teacher (Max Riemelt).  Well, she thought it was one night stand until realizing she's trapped and confined in his apartment, the only occupied space in what looks like a building that used to house the entire German army.

               The rest of this long, dreary film spreads out the usual connect-the-dots stuff  you expect in the captor/captive genre.......we feel no need to re-hash them here.  A few strange quirks, though.....Palmer starts out appearing strangely haggard and exhausted, as if she's already been held captive in every other European city she stopped in. (She gives her work the full Kristin Stewart mope....)

              But to give her credit, once she's in Riemelt's clutches, she fully commits herself to the tormented performance required of her.  Riemelt's little or no match for her....as the smooth, blandly handsome psycho, he brings nothing to the role,,,,he's like a prop villain, moved around by stagehands. It's strictly Palmer's show here and for what it's worth, she's superb.

               Nothing much to see......and it's all been done before. And will again. And again. We'll chain up 2 stars (**) for "Berlin Syndrome" and the only reason it earns that many comes strictly from Teresa Palmer's all-in due diligence as the abused captive. Someone please give this talented actress a better movie than this one.......