‘Sharp Corner’: Toronto Review

Dir: Jason Buxton. Canada/Ireland. 2024. 110mins

Ben Foster is often drawn to tormented or dangerous characters, but in Sharp Corner he portrays someone entirely different: a compelling non-entity. Based on a Russell Wangersky short story, Canadian filmmaker Jason Buxton’s second feature could be described as a psychological drama, following an aggressively passive husband and father as he becomes fixated on the car accidents that keep happening in his front yard. The film does not give up its mysteries easily, but some fine performances and a carefully maintained tone keep viewers riveted — all in the name of a disquieting exploration of how people find scraps of meaning in their empty lives.

Fine performances and a carefully maintained tone

Sharp Corner premieres in Toronto, also the launching pad for Buxton’s 2012 debut, Blackbird. Foster and co-star Cobie Smulders will help raise the profile of this modest picture, which could be further strengthened by strong reviews. While arthouse is a possibility, streaming services may be just as likely a landing spot.

Tech-company executive Josh (Foster) and therapist Rachel (Smulders) are a middle-class married couple who have just moved out of the city to a lovely larger home in the country with their young son Max (William Kosovic). The house has just one problem: it is located right next to a sharp turn in the road, which speeding or drunk drivers often fail to recognise before they spin out. The first night in their new home, a teen motorist dies while smashing into a tree on their lawn, one of his tires flying through the window and nearly hitting Josh and Rachel. Concerned about their anxious child, Rachel proposes they move, but Josh insists that everything will be okay — even though more deadly crashes occur over the next several months.

Early on, Buxton hints that his protagonist is a bit detached, with Josh staring off blankly as his family becomes accustomed to this seemingly idyllic home. Wielding a soft-spoken reticence, Foster creates a character who seems to disappear from every room he’s in, his face fixed in a permanent sigh and half-smile. (Rachel describes him, unflatteringly, as having a “defensive personality”.) But once the first fatal accident happens, Josh begins to take an interest in the dead teenager — a quiet, building curiosity that begins to distract him from work and his marriage. The crash does not change his outer bearing, but Foster deftly suggests that something has been awoken inside Josh, even if audiences will not know for some time precisely what it is.

Much of Sharp Corner’s fascination comes from attempting to unravel Josh’s puzzling agenda. Without telling his wife, he starts learning CPR — and, more intriguingly, attends the funeral resulting from another fatal car crash in front of his house, pretending to be a friend of the deceased. Rachel grows increasingly worried that Max is showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder from witnessing these frequent accidents. But Josh refuses to leave, arguing that spending more time with Max will help his son recover from the trauma. At the same time, Josh is silently smarting about recently being passed over for a promotion at work.

Because of its naturalistic approach to a progressively odd situation, Sharp Corner risks losing its audience, starting with the strange regularity of these car crashes. But Buxton and the characters accept that shocking reality, which paves the way for Foster’s committed performance, a tricky tightrope walk as a man unable (or, perhaps, unwilling) to articulate his inner life. Known for intense portrayals in films such as Hell Or High Water, the actor brings that history to this role while subverting our expectations. Josh never explodes in the ways Foster’s previous characters have, but there’s a simmering unease to this ineffectual individual which is entrancing. (Stephen McKeon’s ominous score only heightens the sense of dread.) When, at last, it becomes apparent why Josh has been behaving so strangely, Foster and Buxton have laid out enough clues so that the revelation is understandable — albeit, very surprising.

With Foster so muted, his character’s inexplicable tendencies a troubling riddle, Smulders must ground the proceedings, playing Rachel as a sensible woman who loves her husband but does not comprehend his desire to stay at the house. Sharp Corner is the portrait of a failing marriage, and Smulders treats every scene with the proper gravity, believably reacting as anyone would to Josh’s confusing actions and eventual deception. She gives Foster the space to play a man so withdrawn that he cannot summon the will to express his bottomless sadness. The film sideswipes us by exactly how Josh finally decides to open up.