By David Dent
I’m not sure where director John Rosman has been honing his craft, as New Life seems to be his debut feature film. And what a start!
Jessica Murdock (Hayley Erin) is a girl on the run. When we first meet her, she has blood on her face and she’s moving undercover from town to town. Befriended by a pastor and his wife, she’s grateful to be given bed and board for a night, no questions asked, but she’s keen to get to the border; Jessica is engaged, but it’s clear that something may have happened to her intended.
We learn that Jessica is being tracked, for reasons only made clear about halfway through the movie. Her pursuer is Elsa Gray (Sonya Walger), an agent with a solid track record for this sort of thing. She has a team assisting her who she never meets; the guide in her earphone gives her all the information she needs to know. But Elsa has a secret; she has early onset ALS, and the disability is slowly taking hold, hindering her ability to perform at her best.
As we follow Elsa and Jessica across the snowy Oregon countryside, we learn more details about the pursued and the pursuer, details of which would spoil a big plot reveal about halfway through. Suffice to comment that Jessica is a very valuable commodity, with a big pharma company pulling the strings.
While New Life is ostensibly a low budget, indie production, what makes it great are the performances (Erin and Walger are both superb, and there’s a host of note perfect supporting roles which inject a reality into what we’re seeing) and the way the story is carefully stitched together, providing incremental details that are all in place before the mid movie reveal.
Rosman’s debut is a very satisfying, and at times disturbing watch (the icky bits, when they arrive, are very icky), with some gorgeous photography and a moving score by composer duo Mondo Boys, which supports and enhances the various moods of this fine film. Go see it!
New Life is released on digital platforms on 3 June 2024.
Bloody Flicks 