Sorry, Charlie — Sorry, Charlie( VOD)
From director Colton Tran (The Sex Lives of College Girls and The Bell Keeper) comes Sorry, Charlie, a new psychological thriller based on a terrifying true story. ‘The Gentleman’, a notorious serial killer and rapist, is finally behind bars and Charlie (Kathleen Kenny) should be happy to see him rot. But her life has become one of isolation, working from home as a helpline operator she finds herself cut off from her friends and family. All it takes is one unwanted guest to make this peace come crashing down, and there’s someone else in this house with her.
This is a rare Tubi original. Now I’m not massively familiar with Tubi, mostly because in the UK you don’t have access to the service so a lot of these smaller budget indies go under the radar despite wide digital releases.
Sorry, Charlie has the exact type of premise that draws the eye, it’s a simple locked-room thriller so the format works for this budget. However, I just couldn’t get into it. Part of that might have been to do with some technical issues with the screener I was sent; for some reason, the outer third of the frame was just not visible. I shall not be holding this against the film.
What I will hold against it is the direction. Tran’s visuals lack a certain claustrophobia or gloominess that usually brings these types of stories to life. Charlie’s house feels too unwelcoming to begin with, with spartan furniture and strange lighting. It all feels slightly too open for that claustrophobia to be created effectively, instead creating a sense of discomfort it just makes you think about how this looks like no house anyone would ever live in. The direction does begin to work in the back half where the slight cat and mouse elements are introduced, here Tran adopts that darker visual style to really make the presence of our villainous force feel intimidating.
As for performances, Kenny does carry the film quite well. She is ostensibly performing on her own for the vast majority of the run time so it’s a tough job to begin with. But Kenny captures the tortured past of Charlie really well, you can clearly see those moments where shots of those memories come firing through her mind and the darkness dwells in her eyes for a second. Weirdly I think her performance gets slightly weaker when she is playing off Connor Brannigan’s suitably sinister vocal performance as ‘The Gentleman’, but this could be down to the fact that Brannigan clearly recorded his dialogue later.
On the whole, I just wish I could have found myself more engaged with Sorry, Charlie, it’s sad because it is the exact type of thriller I would usually like and it is great to see low-budget indies get a bit of platform. But I don’t think there is enough intrigue or directorial flare to really keep you invested. The whole film is quite reliant on Kenny’s performance, which is luckily good enough to hold your attention. Almost my thing, but regrettably not for me.