Kryptic, with it’s promising potential gets lost within its own aesthetic and desire to be rife with ambiguity. Chloe Pirrie and the cinematography are the shining lights in a film let down from a wanting script.
Kay Hall (Chloe Pirrie) joins a group of women on a nature hike to Krypto Peak. The area is known for cryptids and is also where renowned cryptozoologist Barbara Valentine went missing three years prior while she searched for a mysterious creature. When Kay strays from the group and has a disturbingly vicious encounter with the beast, she forgets who she is. She becomes obsessed with finding Barb Valentine, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Kay.
Writer Paul Bromley had some great ideas for a film and meshed them together with Kryptic. Both ideas on their own are strong enough to bring you as the audience in, but combining them loses the potency that was there, each side negating the other and causing you to be frustrated with how unsatisfied you are. There is a line of coherence throughout the film to cling to. Yet, Bromley’s desire to snap that thin tether is a continuous peril we endure.
From the synopsis alone, that’s enough for a great film about someone finding themselves, right? It’s certainly appealing, and the first 20 minutes do well to build up that mystery. Yet, for some reason, the film turns into this odd road trip of Kay meeting eccentric random people one after another. It never really builds to anything substantial. Instead, it tries to actively confuse you for some completely unknown reason.
Kryptic struggles with a sense of disconnection from itself. Its narrative looseness may either captivate or alienate you. Those who appreciate ambiguity and looseness in a script may find something to love here. The film has its moments, but they are scattered amidst a deliberately jumbled tone. It’s a film with untapped potential that only fully emerges in the finale.
Where Kryptic struggles, however, Chloe Pirrie shines as she drags the film along with her performance. When you lose a bit of patience with the story, she keeps you connected. Unsure of who or what she is, she tiptoes along the line of sanity fantastically well. She is in a nightmare, which she can’t get out of. It even has you thinking about whether she wants to escape it. Equally, once we get back into the British Columbia forests, Kryptic becomes gorgeous photography.
Kryptic is a film that just has too much going on, overshooting itself when it should have reined itself in and told a narrower story. There are some highlights, and director Kourtney Roy in her feature debut is certainly going to be a filmmaker to keep an eye on in the future, but without Pirrie’s performance, this would be a film that will frustrate.
The funny thing about Roy’s film is that it will find an audience; there is enough there to like and even love, and that’s the unique thing about Kryptic. For some of us, it will not work, but for those like Kay in the film itself, they will find it and have one hell of a journey with it. For me, it was a touch too clumsy and if anything too smart for its own good – a shame.
★★ 1/2
For more of our coverage of Fantasia Festival 2024 please check out our reviews below:
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