Tethered
One of the easier leaps in science-fiction is to bring in paranoia and madness, and how one change to their world can bring that out of the main character. This isn’t to say that writer-director Gregg Furuoka is telling an easy story in his thriller, “Tethered,” but that it follows a familiar thematic and emotional path to its main hook in its story. I wish I had more of a connection to the characters and their predicament in Furuoka’s film, which has an interesting premise, but doesn’t really know how to follow through with it.
Samantha (Caroline Harris) is struggling emotionally. It’s been almost a year since her sister died, and when we first see her, she’s in a therapist’s office, and she is ready to get out of there, feeling as though they’re just “spinning their wheels” at this point. This might be one of the most authentic moments in the movie- a patient feels like they can’t get anything further out of therapy, so they just use the excuse of how it feels like they’re just going around and around everything again, so why bother? Another key thing in this scene- Samantha’s words feel like a deflection of her therapist’s question of what work she’s done outside of the sessions in terms of processing her feelings- some people just don’t like being challenged on what they’re doing or feeling. This is a strong introduction to Samantha, or Sam, as she prefers.
Later on, Sam is having dinner with her partner, John (Joshua Kwak), and his wife, Jules (Erika Enggren)- they’re cops- and even there, she’s a bit looser, but still not entirely comfortable, except with John. The next day, they find themselves investigating a John Doe victim who seems to have just keeled over. No identification, no seeming violent intent- just a notebook with him. They find their way to someone who might know something about the victim, and that knowledge leads them to a place in the woods. In the woods, they lose one another, and cannot seem to reconnect. Sam loses time. The next thing we see is her and Jules grieving over John’s loss. What if John is not entirely gone, however?
There are title cards signifying a shift in perspective and events in each of the three acts of “Tethered” after the woods. I won’t really go too deep into spoilers, but the person who last saw their John Doe knows more than he’s letting on, and has some surprising revelations for Sam when she revisits him. I will say, the title of “Tethered” is central to the film’s premise, as we start to see two characters connected, but not really able to meet except at particular moments when their lives intersect. It’s an intriguing premise for this film, but it feels barely thought out in Furuoka’s screenplay. His direction is solid, and when the focus is on Samantha, and especially as her obsession with the past threatens her relationship with Kevin (Connor Keene) after John goes missing, “Tethered” is at its best. The sci-fi elements of the film don’t quite come together, however, in a way that has anything to say about the emotional groundwork that has been laid in Sam’s character. If “Tethered” is to work, that needed to be the endgame. As it is, it feels like two halves of a story that don’t quite make a whole.
