I walked in to 40 Acres knowing the premise was made a year ago, starring Halle Berry and Alexandre Aja. Read: I did NOT have high expectations, expecting a random murder spree in cornfields. But the R.T. Thorne Danielle Deadwyler combination didn’t peak in the mid 2000s (sorry Halle/Alexandre): they’re peaking now, meaning we get a real bonafide winner with something really interesting to say.
40 Acres is yes a reference to the famous William T. Sherman order, but it’s also the size of the Freeman’s property. North America is in the middle of societal collapse, and this family has settled in rural Canada, staying firmly isolated as the opening sequence shows the world has gone a bit mad. On the daily rounds oldest son Manny (Kataem O’Connor) spots a frightened Dawn (Milcania Diaz-Rojas), the pretty girl he saw a few days ago. Manny binds her and hides her in the barn, wanting to believe her…but he’s also scared, because his mom Hailey (Danielle Deadwyler), well, has a pretty black and white take on outsiders getting anywhere near Manny, Raine (Leenah Robinson), Danis (Jaeda LeBlanc), Galen (Michael Greyeyes) or any other Freeman.
What an incredible first feature from R.T. Thorne! He took his time with this one, developing the movie since 2018. This movie is more than just its really clever title, inverting the famous quote. The emotional underpinning is simple and strong, using a ubiquitous rite of passage surrounded by its on the nose societal allegory. Thorne uses the horrors of the outsiders like the shark from Jaws, saving the worst acts until the third act, using atmosphere and dread to amp the tension. The choice pays off: when the bad people enter the Freeman’s property, Thorne walks the tightrope brilliantly of revealing enough but not torture porning us, so we can fill in the horrific gaps ourselves. Along the way, I was also admiring how cool Thorne and cinematographer Jeremy Benning’s cameras were, using tracking shots and lots of active camera movements to help establish the Freeman’s house as a space and look a little cool too. The pair save their best tricks for the final act though, especially one battle inside the Freeman’s house, using incredible lighting and sound to capture a battle in a newer way that smartly lets the viewer fill in the gaps that maybe he didn’t have for his production budget. And yet, battles like this make 40 Acres stand out above the generic shoot and knife battles we get in these post apocalyptic movies.
Danielle Deadwyler’s presence here is when R.T. Thorne probably realized his idea was going to work. Only Deadwyler could have played this role. Hailey Freeman has to be a tension amplifier for 40 Acres to work. The minute the Freeman family sits down to dinner, you feel on edge. The kids make some “harmless” joke a teenager would make, but Hailey Joe Pesci’s the situation, doing a lot of “why’s that funny?” stuff that completely shifts the dinner from loving to confrontational. Mom gets all her info from radio’s downstairs, only making her more paranoid with the dangers around the property. So as Marcus, Raine, and the other older teenagers start to not follow Hailey’s exact orders, those incredible Deadwyler eyes start to laser and pierce into the kids’ souls, dressing them down with just a look where they fall in line again. It’s not all military drills though; through flashbacks and quiet moments we see the nurturing, even funny side of Hailey, who hates having to do this but realizes this particular world needs her strict parenting. As such, as Manny gets bolder and the enemies surround the Freemans, we don’t know at first who to fear more, Hailey or the “others” a testament to how well Danielle Deadwyler has imposed her will on the story.
If the world ever goes to hell, Danielle Deadwyler, I’ll be on the lookout for you. 40 Acres shows me you can run a tight ship with just a quick look, your presence being enough. If she gave me the Russell Crowe Gladiator speech, the minute she said “unleash hell”, I would enter the fight knowing Deadwyler just summoned inhuman strength and transferred those powers to me, ready to propel me into battle!