A Vigilante
                                                                                                                     
Director: Sarah Daggar-Nickson
Year: 2018
Rating: 6.5
Almost guaranteed this isn't what you expect it to be by a brief description of the film or after the first scene. It invites you in with a seemingly exploitive female revenge beginning but them becomes a grueling grim portrayal of abuse. More horror than revenge. More horrific than satisfying. It is the directorial debut of Sarah Daggar-Nickson from a script that she wrote. It is clearly personal in some way. A scream. A cry. A knife thrust. At the male figure. Nothing about this is pleasant because we all know how true the abuse is. How prevalent it is. How society and psychology protects the abuser. This feels clinical at times as women in a meeting of abused women tell their story. They ring true. In this safe space, they almost shamefully tell what abuse they accepted till it went too far. Overlaying this though is the character of Sadie played with intense intimate anger by Olivia Wilde. It is an amazing performance, both physically and emotionally. Battered and bloodied but resilient.



Sadie was abused by her husband (Morgan Spector) till she broke away and went into hiding. And decided that she will do something about the abuse. Not just for her, but for other victims. She trains, becomes strong, becomes implacable. And in something out of the Equalizer lets women know that she will help them. Call this number. If you come across other abused women, give them my number. It is hard to know how many such missions she goes on. We are only witness to a few. Then she decides to look for her husband. No, not look. Hunt for him. Nothing like I was expecting. Slow. Methodical. Painful. It seems that Dagger-Nickson has directed nothing else since this film. Was this a cathartic scream that she needed to exhume?