Existentialism and sci-fi at its best; pity it's only a short film - but a great one when it comes to its reflections. In "The Escape", a middle-aged
man (Julian Sands) is offered by a mysterious man (Art Malik) the chance of getting whatever he desires. Whatever comes to mind or heart and he can achieve
it but it comes with a price: he must give everything he owns and another more significant "payment" that I don't wanna disclose, gonna leave that
mystery in the air since it's way too reflective and when audiences hear about that other thing, they'll find something new, intriguing and worthy
of debate if you'd trade that in order to get everything you want.
Lambert (Sands character) begins to reflect of what he has to leave behind besides possessions: he's a married man going through some crisis
with his wife (Olivia Williams), a young daughter going to college and a young son, who like him, wants to avoid responsabilities, and there's
some work crisis as well. Obviously that he wants a way out of the complexities and obstacles of modern day life, get detached from everything and
everyone and disappear to a dream life, or dream world, whatever that means. At times, we are like Lambert but to what cost we could buy a new reality, if ever possible.
Many mysteries in the air, little solutions and it's up to each viewer reflect on what's shown and reflect on what one would do if given such
possibility. It's nice that we don't know exactly what Lambert wanted as we can put ourselves in his shoes and figure out some great escape from whatever
we want to avoid in order to feel fulfilled (call it X and that's where the man was sent). The audiences who likes challenges, questions and almost to none answers
will greatly satisfied with everything presented, and the performances by the cast as well (Malik was my favorite, he steals the show as the "seller of
a better future"). And if there's a wish I could make, it would be for a feature film of this story as there are countless of possibilities to be
explored, the drama of it all is poignant and the sci-fi elements are intelligent without explaining too much. 9/10.
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