Ann Hunter (Dale Dickey) loves her husband. She’s simply never been the caregiver type. That’s what drew him to her in the first place––leaving his wife to be with someone more his speed in their ruthless, take-no-prisoners attitude. Age comes for everyone, though. And it came for him fast. Unfortunately, they had already moved closer to his son in a place Ann couldn’t stand beyond the ability it afforded her to grow close with his granddaughter Emma (Romane Denis). So she filled the time with cigarettes and alcohol, alienated herself from everyone but the girl, and inevitably found herself being chastised by his doctor for neglecting the care his deteriorating body needs.
Whereas this development would generally give Ann the chance to turn things around or double-down on the self-destruction, Karl R. Hearne’s The G grabs hold and drags her towards a place of vengeance by way of a corporate opportunist named Rivera (Bruce Ramsay). With the Hunters’ doctor on his payroll, Rivera flags the couple as a potential mark for him to file papers and become their legal guardian without them having a chance to petition the order. He followed the paper trail on Ann’s name to an apparent windfall inheritance and thus assumed he could procure it by taking over her finances. Thus he and his associate Ralph (Jonathan Koensgen) enter their home in the middle of the night and take them away.
But there’s a reason Ann doesn’t have any friends and why her husband’s family doesn’t like her: she’s a difficult woman with a horrific past that has made her cold to anyone unwilling to meet her on her terms. It shouldn’t be a surprise when Rivera is forced to turn the screws––the money isn’t where it’s supposed to be––and it isn’t a shock when her defiance quickly makes him realize he won’t be able to learn its whereabouts from torturing her. He’ll need to go after her loved ones instead. Just like with the money, though, Ann isn’t without other secrets; the moment her enemies leave her with nothing but the prospect of payback, that will become her sole reason for living.
It’s a fantastic premise that provides Dickey the perfect showcase to remind audiences why she’s such a sought-after commodity in Hollywood. That it’s taken this long for filmmakers to give her the lead (see A Love Song also) is a travesty, but I’m glad it’s finally happening. Because she commands our attention with a stoic stare that could kill if she wanted. All we need to know about how far she’ll go here is the scream she lets out when Rivera and Ralph start abusing her husband. It’s not one of fear, but rage. Her Ann knows who these men are and what they’re capable of as well as the reality that she’s currently at a disadvantage. So she must wait. She must plan. And she must try to keep Emma out of the line of fire.
That’s where Hearne starts to bite off a little more than he can chew. Not because the Emma plotline isn’t effective. Denis is very good and supplies a necessary contrast of goodness to Ann’s malice––especially because she’s trying to be more like “The G” and less like herself. That this effort inevitably leads her into the fire isn’t bad, either––it gives us an outside player to serve as a go-between while Ann is stuck in Rivera’s caregiving facility. Add an acquaintance from Ann’s past in The Stranger (Christian Jadah) with a kindly old man at the home (Roc Lafortune’s Joseph) and the potential for drama, violence, and betrayal is high. How it all unfolds is, sadly, too often on-the-nose.
The way the story progresses has enough stakes and twists to keep our intrigue through its familiar genre movements. The paths taken, however, are so blatantly dripping in violence towards women that you can tell a man was at the helm. It’s not enough for Ann and Emma to overcome the world’s inherent misogyny; they must also survive every worst-case scenario. And that’s not counting a nightmarish tale from Ann’s childhood. I’m talking about the few months in which this film occurs. There’s Ann’s stepson resenting her for being a “homewrecker” and refusing to consider her existence as anything but. There’s Emma’s sexually abusive ex-boss and her new, “respectable” boyfriend Matt (Joe Scarpellino) who strips naked two seconds into their first date.
It’s as though Hearne doesn’t think we will see that these women have the odds stacked against them simply for being women. It feels like he’s catering to a male audience that can’t comprehend their own chauvinistic, abusive ways, so he must make it as overt as possible, knowing they have to suspend their disbelief for feminism to even exist. The whole endeavor almost has the reverse reaction than intended. He ends up having to risk destroying these women to give them the motivation to do the things they do—as if the injustice of a man kidnapping an old couple to steal their money under the auspices of “care” isn’t enough. They need to be beaten and tortured too.
I don’t think the success of the whole is ruined by this filter. It’s just another example of the nuance needed to tell these types of women-led stories that women have from experience. We’re so used to these male-gazey versions that we’ve ultimately become inured to it, anyway. The real head-scratchers here involve hard-boiled eggs and an unironic doggy-paddle. They are meant to disgust and amuse us, respectively, but both are so out-of-place with the gritty tone of authenticity that the whole prides itself on to be anything more than distracting. Thankfully, Denis is up to the task of carrying both scenes despite them, matching Dickey’s complex performance to give us a three-dimensional character amidst the deluge of clichéd abuse.
The G had its North American premiere at the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival.
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