Sci-Fi ‘The Saviors’ Aspires to ‘The Twilight Zone’ but Falls Somewhat Short [Review]

While The Twilight Zone (Rod Serling’s original run) might well be reduced to a New Year’s Eve Syfy marathon today, its reverberations remain electric. Everything from indie horror to theme park rides cull from Serling’s probing, disorienting sci-fi/horror anthology series, especially so in moments of cultural and political unrest. Like… right now. Enter Kevin Hamedani’s take on Serling’s classic series for a new generation, his unwaveringly angry sci-fi satire The Saviors, equal parts Serling and, curiously enough, Arlington Road.

Sean Harrison (Adam Scott, in top cad form) and his wife, Kim (Danielle Deadwyler) are on the fritz. Their house is falling apart, Sean is out of work, and they’re planning to separate. To earn some extra cash, they list their guest house on Airbnb and are delighted when guests quickly book an entire week. But Amir (Theo Rossi) and his deaf sister, Jahan (Nazanin Boniadi) aren’t their ideal tenants. They’re Middle Eastern, and both Sean and Kim obscure their implicit biases with misguided jokes and subtle hostility.

It’s very Reddit, the mainstreamification of very real, very troubling prejudice. Ron Perlman and Colleen Camp, playing Sean’s parents, feature just to spout some Baby’s First Turning Point USA ideological nonsense to contextualize the political divide between Sean’s ostensibly progressive politics and the conservative rot around him. He’s better than them, even though he swiftly spirals into conspiracy himself. He becomes convinced that Amir and Jahan are planning to assassinate the President during an upcoming visit.

Hamedani and his co-writer, Travis Betz, have fun with a disgruntled and bumbling Scott in the first act. He’s so desperate not to appear racist, donning a metaphorical tinfoil hat as he pleads with Kim and his sister, Cleo (Kate Berlant, a “cool conservative” in her own words), that their new houseguests are terrorists who just so happen to be Middle Eastern. Rossi and Boniadi deserve considerable props, too, striking a delightful balance between outward politeness and odd behavior, challenging the audience to resist Sean’s biases right alongside him.

Contextually, and this is where the firmer genre elements take hold, Sean (and soon Kim) are troubled by apocalyptic dreams of a war-torn world, a Fallout-style wasteland awash in brown and grays. That paranoia drives them, convinced they’re operatives for the greater good, subtle reinforcement for how their progressive politics render them immune from criticism. They’re good people, and their othering of Amir and Jahan is different than the rest of the world’s.

All the more so when Greg Kinnear cameos as a kooky private investigator and The Saviors pivots toward procedural inquiry. Stakeouts, the gathering of clues, and a neighbor’s dog that might be in serious danger. 25 years out from 9/11, there’s resonance in the undercurrent of xenophobia that Hamedani rightly contends remains a bedrock of American culture. It pollutes everything, even other marginalized spaces, and that tension can unite even the most broken of souls. Hell, it might just save Sean and Kim’s marriage.

Yet, while the thesis is strong, The Saviors is, at times, just an extension of the politically confrontational genre fare we’ve seen a lot of post-2016. Think The Hunt, The Humans, The Oath, Silent Night, and infinite others. It’s a point that simultaneously helps and hinders the movie. Hamedani manages some stunning thematic imagery alongside DP Jon Keng, but right through to the twist ending, The Saviors feels like an inevitability.

It’s not challenging so much as it is reflecting what we already know. Sometimes the best of the genre can do just that and emerge worthy of praise nonetheless. At its best, The Saviors does manage serious discomfort. It’s squirm-inducing and very of-the-moment. A lasting legacy is harder to manifest, and that remains up in the air. Maybe The Saviors will endure, or maybe, like the monsters on Maple Street, it’ll be a lot of hoo-ha for nothing.

Tags: Adam Scott Danielle Deadwyler Kevin Hamedani The Saviors

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