Retreat

A taut thriller with a somewhat familiar premise, Retreat stars Cillian Murphy and Thandie Newton as Martin and Kate, a London couple who suffered a recent miscarriage. The two seek isolation on a remote, windy island off the west coast of Scotland, a rugged place where adventurers can rent a lone, generator-powered stone house. Here, miserable Kate and laconic Martin separately grieve—largely in silence—until a bloody, unconscious man named Jack (Jamie Bell) turns up on shore. Claiming to be a soldier who barely escaped a sudden, global pandemic caused by a killer virus, Jack terrorizes his hosts into turning the house into a fortress that will keep infected refugees from entering. For a while, this is all dark fun, with Martin and Kate squabbling over the veracity of Jack's claims, Jack intrusively prodding them about their relationship issues, and everybody caught up in paranoia and subterfuge. Co-writer and director Carl Tibbetts's familiar narrative strategy of placing estranged spouses in danger and forcing them to help one another works well for a while, but the script's various twists and turns eventually lead to an unsatisfying ending. An optional purchase. (T. Keogh)