CLOSE

UK/US, 2019, 94 minutes, Colour.
Noomi Rapace, Sophie Nelisse, Indira Varma.
Directed by Vicki Jewson.

Noomi Rapace has a strong role in this action drama, a bodyguard, a strong-minded woman who is alienated from her own family.

She is employed to be a bodyguard to a young woman in Morocco. They clash, the young woman not wanting a bodyguard. Also complications with her family, especially her stepmother.

The film then explores various aspects of North Africa and politics in the Middle East. Many complexities – and, even in the plot, with dangers to the bodyguard, but her rising to the occasion. And, some final twists in what is actually going on and a change of sympathies towards the stepmother.

1. An action story, a bodyguard, security and protection, the connection with multinationals?

2. The Middle East and opening, the threats, the ambush, Sam and her quick thinking, shooting, protection? The return home, her company, security and bodyguards? Her contacts?

3. To Europe, to the UK? The action in Morocco, the desert, the luxury home, the cities? The musical score?

4. Introduction to Sam, her capacity for action, the journalists and saving them, her husband, the phone calls from her daughter and her ignoring them?

5. Zoe, spoilt, her relationship with her father, her stepmother, her father’s death, the funeral, the reading of a will, and the bequest to her? Her stepmother and her reaction? Issues of selling, takeover, rival firms and representatives?

6. The situation, the hiring of Sam? The meeting with Zoe, the clash of personality, Sam’s detachment, going to the dance, warding off the man? Doing her job?

7. The abduction, the consequences, the threats to Zoe, Sam in action?

8. The range of threats, dangers, escapes?

9. The stepmother, her assistance, the variety of thugs, the paid-off police, the various shifts of sympathies and revelations about criminal activity?

10. The attack, the shooting, Zoe shooting the policeman, the response, the media, the television discussion about the selling of the company, the threats to the sale? Audience assumptions about the stepmother and the abduction – but the rival company and the attempt to bring down the price?

11. The two women going to the house, the defence, the various attacks, security, the cameras, Sam trapped in rooms, watching?

12. Sam, the representative of the company, the tensions, his death?

13. The various traps, the various escapes, the underwater sequence and the drowning of the thug? Zoe and her initiatives?

14. The stepmother, her men, the situation for the sale, the switch in sympathies?

15. Action, Mission accomplished, Zoe and the bond with Sam, and telling her to contact her daughter?