Firestarter
2022 · Directed by Keith Thomas
Original language: English
- horror
- science fiction
The story
For more than a decade, parents Andy and Vicky have been on the run, desperate to hide their daughter Charlie from a shadowy federal agency that wants to harness her unprecedented gift for creating fire into a weapon of mass destruction. Andy has taught Charlie how to defuse her power, which is triggered by anger or pain. But as Charlie turns 11, the fire becomes harder and harder to control. After an incident reveals the family's location, a mysterious operative is deployed to hunt down the family and seize Charlie once and for all. Charlie has other plans.
What it’s like
Cool, drained daylight and blue-grey interiors give this one a sober, road-worn look: motel rooms, rural Midwest roadside and dim domestic kitchens, shot with steady, tightly composed frames that often hold on faces. Flame arrives as a sudden hot orange punctuation in otherwise muted scenes, and the score leans on low synth drones and pulsing tension rather than melody, so the quiet stretches feel watchful. The mood is anxious and tender at once, a fugitive-family unease with a coming-of-age ache underneath. Pacing is steady and escalating, building toward fraught set pieces rather than sustained chase energy. Its people are a loving but strained father and daughter learning to live with a frightening gift, and the arc is about a child reclaiming control of her own body and anger. Violence is present and occasionally sharp, with some fire-related injury and menace from pursuers, but it is more tense than gory and not a gentle watch. Suited to late-night viewers who like paranoid thrillers with an emotional core, and to fans of quieter genre films about young women with dangerous powers.
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