Roost – TIFF 2022

Roost
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A teenager meets an older man online who turns out to have a history with her mother in . () is a 17-year-old teenager who has been exchanging online flirtations with Eric (), a much older man from across the country. Anna is surprised when Eric tracks her down to meet in person, and she eventually decides to introduce him to her mother, Beth (), who just got engaged to assistant police chief Tim (). However, Beth is mortified when she sees Eric, and it soon comes to light that they have a history with each other.

Roost is a psychological thriller directed by Amy Redford, the daughter of Robert, and written by Scott Organ, based on his play. The film stars Grace Van Dien (Stranger Things) as a teenager named Anna, who enters into an online relationship with a much older man named Eric, played by Kyle Gallner (Scream). However, things become complicated when it’s discovered that Eric is a former student of Anna’s mother, Beth and is playing a game of cat and mouse with the latter.

Roost is a film that’s structured like a thriller but actually comes across like a twisted soap opera. I almost expected the truth about Eric to be worse than it turns out to be, but it does end up feeling somewhat convoluted. While Grace Van Dien has been recently gaining a following after appearing in the latest season of Stranger Things, in Roost, she plays little more than a naive teenager who ends up taking a backseat to Summer Phoenix, the youngest sister of River and Joaquin, who takes over as the main protagonist in the second half, as Roost moves further into Days of our Lives territory.

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