KEPT WOMAN
Canada, 2014, 83 minutes, Colour.
Courtney Ford, Shaun Benson, Andrew W.Walker, Rachel Wilson, Troy Blundell, Jesse Camacho.
Directed by Michel Poulette.
Kept Woman is a Canadian telemovie taking up the prevalent theme of abducting women and imprisoning them. The story was treated in The Cleveland Abduction and a variation on the story was impressively told in Room (for which Brie Larson won a Best Actress Oscar).
Courtney Ford and Andrew W. Walker play an engaged couple, Jessica and Evan, whose apartment is burgled and who then decide to move out of the city, investing in a house which makes financial demands on them. He works at a job he does not like. She stays at home with a design project – but spends a lot of time online in conversations with a group who are investigating missing persons.
Shaun Benson is Simon, the University lecturer living next door, clothes like Dobie Gillis including hat, who makes himself known with a gift of wine and is continually helpful.
The audience discovers at the end that he has a record of abducting people and losing his job. He takes Jessica, placing her in a well-appointed basement, like the 1950s, where another abductee, Robin, is helping him live in a 1950s life, kitchen, meals, clothes, and subservience to Simon’s demands. While Jessica resists, time passes, Robin becomes jealous and is killed by Simon, and Jessica seems completely subservient until Evan sells the house. Some information comes from the computer nerd and Evan is suspicious along with his police friend, Tyler. Jessica uses her wits bakes rhubarb pie which she makes Simon eat with his fingers – so that he smudging the numbers on the code numbers for locking the room.
There is a postscript, a year later, Jessica having written the book she had hoped to write, about her abduction – and giving Simon a gift in prison telling him to accept his fate.
The film keeps the interest throughout.
1. An abduction story? The title? Jessica and her experience? Her publishing the book?
2. New York, house, robbery? Transferring to the country, home, neighbours, the street? The interiors of the house? The basement? The computer nerd and his headquarters? The musical score?
3. The prevalence of stories about abduction of women, their being kept? This variation on the theme?
4. Jessica and Evan, engaged, happy couple, finding their apartment burgled, the family jewels? The confrontation with the robber? The police? Help from Tyler?
5. The decision to move, the house, expenses, mortgage? Evan and his work and not liking it? Jessica, her designs, spending time on the Internet with missing cases? The tension between the two?
6. Simon, bringing the wine, friendly, eccentric clothes and hat? Jessica suspicious? Borrowing the spade? His coming to the meal?
7. Simon, his background, the revelation of the case against him, and abductions? Lecturing? Masculine studies? The irony of his chauvinism? His surveillance cameras, seeing Jessica, abducting her, chloroform, packing her case, getting her computer, sending the message to Evan?
8. Jessica, her resistance, screams, knocking? Able to see Evan on the cameras? His visits? The encounter with Robin? Her being the perfect 50s housewife, clothes, make-up and hair do, cooking, subservient to her husband? Her back story and relationship with Simon? The revelation that she had killed the previous woman abducted? Robin and the iron mark on her back?
9. Simon and his control, shopping and Jessica’s previous suspicions about the quantity, the locks, the codes, his threats? His behaviour, the two women, taking it in turns for the nights with him? The revelation of his obsessed character?
10. Evan, desperate, sorry, the decision to sell the house, reliance on Tyler, interviewing Simon, Simon continuing to be a friend, the sale of the house? The contact with Oscar, his information about Simon?
11. Tyler, following, discussions with Oscar, interviewing Simon, searching the house, Simon killing him and getting rid of the body?
12. Robin, her advice to Jessica, her jealousy, her telling Simon – and Simon confronting Jessica, killing Robin? Saying that he wanted truth?
13. Jessica seeing that Evan was leaving? The gift of the wine? The rhubarb pie, getting Simon to use his fingers, his marking the code numbers, the fight with Evan, Jessica becoming free, the attack on Simon?
14. A year later, the happy couple, Jessica visiting Simon in prison, wanting him to be a prisoner for life rather than executed, the gift of the book and urging him to accept his fate?
