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Woodshock movie review & film summary (2017)

Various people try to get her to snap out of it, including her cold, impatient boyfriend, Nick (Joe Cole), who now lives with her in her mother’s house—a place that, like everything else in “Woodshock,” is mired in a studied, ‘70s aesthetic. With its wood paneling, vintage cars and trucks, conspicuous lack of modern technology and a carefully curated jukebox collection at the local watering hole, the movie might take place several decades ago, or it might just be wallowing in retro, hipster chic. Who knows?

Like all the relationships in “Woodshock,” the one between Theresa and Nick is barely fleshed out. But while he isn’t terribly supportive in her time of need, her flirty friend Keith (Pilou Asbaek), is too eager to keep her company—calling her all the time and inviting her out to bars and parties. Keith also happens to own the medical marijuana dispensary where Theresa works and, ostensibly, he’s the one who gave her the magical liquid that helped her put her mother out of her misery.

But in keeping with the movie’s relentlessly dour tone, even Keith is a bummer, although he’s supposed to be the town’s roguish, hard-drinking party boy. A subplot in which he tasks Theresa with helping other people cross over to the great beyond through his product is meant to be crucial to the story, but it never achieves its intended emotional punch.

And so when there is a climactic jolt of violent action, it comes out of nowhere, and it’s so shockingly inconsistent with everything that preceded it that you’re more likely to burst out laughing than gasp in horror. Then again, the dream—or the drug-induced hallucination, or whatever this is—can only last for so long.

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Larita Shotwell

Update: 2024-08-10