FAIR WARNING! Going in, it’s good to note that the film, which is definitely in the “found footage” subgenre, breaks the rules at the end and breaks them for an arbitrary reason. As the film ends, the camera goes from being all POV to a backward tracking shot that shows a full scene. To do that at the end makes no sense in any way other than the director just thought it “looked cool.” And hey, it’s decent but also something we’ve seen before, and since they were intentionally making a film with one technique, it seems strange and arbitrary to end it this way.
It feels like running a marathon and then Ubering the last couple hundred feet to the end.
Hey, whatever.
It definitely dings its rating for me, for sure, but isn’t a deal breaker and isn’t the only issue.
So…
The very nature of what this movie is makes it worth a watch.
It’s a Russian-made film about being tourists.
That’s utterly fascinating.
Now more than ever.
We tend to see Russia as a political adversary and as a global bully waging a ceaseless war against a smaller nation for reasons we may never fully understand. Seeing Russian people, though, stripped of anything but their humanity and put into a situation that Americans can appreciate is really refreshing. As is, really, the tone of the film.
SHOPPING TOUR is a story about a mother and her teen son as they go on a shopping tour of FInland. These Russian tourists are excited to hit their neighboring country with many other shoppers in the hope of catching some duty-free bargains. The son hadn’t realized that the trip was focused on shopping, and his frustration at his mother is clear and vibrant. The two often butt heads as they try to navigate an unspoken tragedy that is bubbling just below the surface. The son films the trip with a new phone he has recently gotten, and we see the trip as it unfolds just as we see the tension between mother and son deepen. As the tour takes an unannounced stop at a large super store before it opens, things suddenly take a strange turn when the son sees that the group is being locked inside. As he tries to convince his mother they are in danger, she finds out quickly enough on her own that something is wrong, and they had better get away or get help if they ever hope to return home from this excursion.
Seeing another nation telling the familiar story of strangers in a strange land is really fascinating. We often see this in American horror films, where people go to another part of our country or another country and realize that they are in danger. It’s desperately xenophobic but also taps into a primal fear of the Other that we just don’t always see in world cinema in this same way.
The film is solid, though if you dislike shaky cam found footage then you’ll want to avoid it as it’s deployed frequently. The story is very interesting, the acting is decent, and the chemistry between the leads is very good. It gets far-fetched at times that the kid films EVERYthing but it’s the conceit of the film so I went along with it. As the real source of the danger plays out, things take on bit of the absurd, but, again, it’s so novel to found footage that I liked it. I also liked that the reasoning for everything is a bit playful, in a macabre way.
The biggest issue of the film, aside from the last shot, is that it just ends with no real resolution. We’re used to that with found footage, sure, but this hits differently because it really does just end without resolving things.
It’s an interesting movie with a really fun climax that just doesn’t quite land all of its punches but, even despite my score, I recommend it because of how unique it is. It may have flaws but it also has a lot of heart and says something new, which is hard to find in this subgenre.
2.5 out of 5
(Coulda been 2.75 but man, that last shot…)
The Spooky World of Chris Ringler 