MONOLITH

CONTAINS VERY MINOR SPOILERS

Sometimes it's the simplest ideas that can make for the most gripping movies, and sometimes the best variation on a familiar theme is a straightforward reversal - in this instance locked out rather than locked in. Monolith isn't any kind of gamechanger but as a lean, stripped-down thriller with a minimal cast (only one major speaking role, a toddler and a handful of walkons and Skype conversations) it's solid and entertaining with a dash of comment about terrible parenting.

Because Sandra (Katrina Bowden) is truly an awful mother: mislaying her kid at a gas station when easily distracted by a fan of her vapid popstar past, constantly giving the boy a dumb videogame to keep him amused and quiet rather than try and engage with him. She smokes in front of him (and is also willing to indulge in some soft drugs) and cheerfully admits to being a homewrecker, yet is hypocritically furious that the husband she stole might be playing away again. So it's somewhat satisfying dramatically when the kid inadvertently locks her out of her super-secure, ultra-safe SUV, the computer-controlled Monolith. With the car in Vault Mode lockdown, the desert temperatures turning it into a potential furnace and her son too young to understand how to open the car from inside, can Sandra "man up" to her maternal responsibilities and figure a way to get the doors open and rescue her steadily dehydrating child? While contending with the local feral wildlife a lack of water?

Sure there are a few holes in the logic - for one thing, the unaccountable lack of any other traffic on a satnav-directed diversion from the road to a major city. But it's a simple, economical setup, it doesn't waste any time at all (a running time of just 83 minutes), and Bowden makes for a flawed but attractive lead forced to make serious grownup decisions for probably the first time in her life. And even though I have absolutely no use for it on my daily commute to the wastelands of Milton Keynes, I kind of want a Monolith for myself. Well worth a look.

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