Nick Frost takes his family on holiday to Sweden and things go terribly, gore-infestedly wrong. Here’s our Get Away review.
At a Q&A for his latest film Get Away, Nick Frost told the audience that the film was inspired by the holidays with his ex-wife to her home country of Sweden. Frost felt he was never quite welcome after getting off the ferry to a small Swedish island, and his experiences as an outsider in Sweden are brought vividly to life in Get Away.
Frost plays Richard, who embarks on a holiday at Svälta, a tiny little Swedish island, just as the community is preparing for their annual Karäntan celebrations. Before the family even steps foot on the island, they’re warned not to go there by an unfriendly cafe owner. Do the Brits listen? Obviously not.
What follows is an amusing comedy but a lacklustre horror film that tries to pull the rug from under your feet with its third act. There’s a lot of blood, but the script, which Frost also wrote, prefers to spell everything out for us rather than leave any room for imagination.
Get Away was filmed in Tampere, Finland, a picturesque place with lots of open water and small islands. The entire supporting cast is made up of Finnish actors, but for some godforsaken reason, Danish director Steffen Haars and Frost have opted to have the characters, all of whom seem to be based on very old stereotypes of Scandinavian people, mostly speaking English, even amongst themselves. As a Finn, I can’t imagine speaking English with my fellow countrymen, especially when no other English speakers were around, but perhaps the assumption behind the camera is that audiences really hate reading subtitles. In which case, what’s the point of setting this in Sweden?
There is lots of fun to be had with Get Away, but it never quite gets going. Frost has a knack for comedy (if you hadn’t noticed from his long career within the genre) and most of the jokes work fine, even if it’s mostly the same ones repeated over and over again. Aisling Bea turns out to be a very worthy match for Frost and the two form a believable family dynamic together with Sebastian Croft and Maisie Ayres who play their children.
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Get Away takes its time getting to the good stuff. The trailers sold this as a wacky, bloody horror, but none of that really happens until in the final third of the film, which is by far the most entertaining bit. By then, many might have already clocked out and given up on Get Away. It’s an enormously satisfying, fun finale but it feels too little too late.
It would be easier to forgive the film’s slowness until the final massacre if the plot made any sense. Frost is so focused on trying to fool his audience that he forgets the best twists are still logical ones. There’s only so much the audience can suspend their disbelief, especially if there’s nothing to make us forget just how little sense everything makes.
Get Away marks Frost’s first time writing without a co-writer. The script plays to Frost’s strengths but other elements of the film don’t work well enough. Haars’ directs the action with a slight hand, which results in a film that isn’t too concerned with crafting a memorable whole.
I wish I liked Get Away more. There’s a great premise here but it’s wasted on a non-sensical narrative and boring stereotypes. Frost might have found himself creeped out by the Swedes, but being creepy isn’t an interesting enough attribute for not just one or two characters, but all of them. Unfortunately, Get Away favours cheap thrills and quick jokes over a good story.
Get Away is now available on Sky Cinema and NOW.
