The In Between
This supernatural story from Netflix, reminiscent of both Truly Madly Deeply and Ghost, claims that love never dies.
Joey King and Kyle Allen
For some inexplicable reason previous films (see above) with a ghostly theme managed to work and be credible, despite any inconsistencies. Here in The In Between the plot really beggars belief, so that we are forced to take on board everything that happens with a massive pinch of salt. Is that too much to ask of any film in which the very nature of the art form compels one to suspend disbelief?
It is no spoiler to say that at the outset there is going to be a death in the family. The film opens with a car crash in which Tessa (Joey King) is badly injured while her boyfriend Skylar (Kyle Allen) dies. Flashback six months previously to the couple’s first encounter as an audience of two in a cinema showing Betty Blue. Tessa is a photographer and film freak, although she cannot follow the film without subtitles. Skylar moves next to Tessa and translates the French dialogue into English. They eventually hitch up and become inseparable. Then the film goes back and forth in time with Tessa trying to get over her loss in the present while looking back to their idyllic past.
She feels that Skylar is still with her in some way. She hears his voice saying her name in the hospital or her phone rings giving her the feeling that he is still trying to reach out to her by sending messages from the other side. During a college examination, her pencil takes on a life of its own by drawing a sketch that reminds her of Skylar. Visiting a psychic doctor elicits the information that it could be a case of ADC - After Death Communication - and Tessa remembers their summer together by visiting places where they had been, and looking at the photographs she had taken.
Whether you can believe this romantic but ghostly psychobabble will depend on your point of view on these matters and how convinced you might be concerning life after death and whether love never dies or not. The two leads, Tessa and Skylar, make an attractively cute and squeaky-clean couple as played by Joey King and Kyle Allen, but unless you can surrender to the whole idea of it all, you may well be left out on a limb.
MICHAEL DARVELL
Cast: Joey King, Kyle Allen, Kim Dickens, John Ortiz, Celeste O'Connor, Donna Biscoe, April Parker Jones, Leander Suleiman.
Dir Arie Posin, Pro Robbie Brenner, Andrew Deane and Joey King, Screenplay Marc Klein, Ph Brendan Galvin, Pro Des Jeannine Oppewall, Ed Zach Staenberg, Music J.J. Pfeifer, Costumes Anette Cseri, Sound Laurent Kossayan.
Industry Entertainment/Paramount Players-Paramount+/Netflix.
115 mins. USA. 2022. US Rel: 11 February 2022. UK Rel: 8 April 2022. Available on Netflix. Cert. 12.