Retreat

This distinctive and very effective thriller is reminiscent of Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017), taking place in a gated community for the deaf guided by the guru-like Mia who presides with an insistent benignity which conceals ruthless resolve. 

A young man, Matt, has lived in the place since childhood and is one of its most enthusiastic adherents, until the arrival of Eva - a disoriented German woman whom he takes under his wing - upsets his equilibrium.  Initially sceptical, Eva undergoes a sort of Damascene revelation following which the more she embraces Mia’s guidance the more disillusioned Matt becomes, leading him to examine the assumptions which have shaped his life up until this point and to a taboo-shattering crisis.

Using unhearing performers, director Ted Evans, who is himself deaf, skilfully dials up the tension incrementally, and the delivery of the narrative almost exclusively in sign-language rather than spoken dialogue adds a kind of ‘wanting to scream in a nightmare but can’t’ quality. His film excels as a thriller, but is also a call for the accommodation of unhearing people in wider society.