‘I saw you in an orange grove.’
A midnight hearing takes place to decide the fate of mass murderer Malcolm Rivers (Pruitt Taylor Vince). Dr Malik (Alfred Molina) is determined to stay Malcolm’s execution on the grounds that evidence supporting an insanity defence were not introduced in his trial.
In the meantime, fate brings ten strangers to a run-down motel on a rainy night when all roads in and out are flooded, and the phone lines are down.
There’s the motel manager, sleazy Larry (John Hawkes) George and Alice York (John C McGinley and Leila Kenzle) and Alice’s son Timmy (Brett Loehr), chauffer driver Ed (John Cusack) and his employer, career-stalled actress Suzanne (Rebecca DeMornay) newly-weds Ginny (Clea DuVall) and Lou (William Lee Scott), sex-worker Paris (Amanda Peet), cop Rhodes (Ray Liotta - RIP) and the prisoner he’s transporting, Robert (Jake Busey).
When Suzanne’s decapitated head is found in one of the laundry room’s washer driers, of course suspicion falls on Robert. But then Robert is also brutally murdered, the remaining guests must work out who the killer is; the thing is, they all think it could be any of them. Paranoia takes hold, with no-one knowing who they can trust. Things are further confused when the bodies disappear as if they were never there and Larry admits he’s not actually the hotel manager.
To say any more than that would give away a twist that’s not at the end of the film (though there is a twist at the end, too). What I can talk about is the feel of the film, and say it’s a delight to watch John Cusack spend so much time being soaking wet.
The film opens with a reading of the ghostly poem Antigonish by William Hughes Mearns. If you had a poetry book as a kid, you’ll probably know it as the little man who wasn’t there poem: ‘Yesterday upon the stair / I met a man who wasn’t there / he wasn’t there again today / I wish, I wish he’d go away’. This sets us up for the theme of the film, and it’s meaning becomes clear when you get to the twist.
The motel has a very unreal feel to it, it’s like a place in a video game, and this you’ll discover, is deliberate. It seems to be in a inescapable time-loop – when Robert attempts an escape, he just finds himself back in the motel’s diner with no explanation as to why.
Identity is a perfect Halloween watch. There’s no ghosts, (despite the poem) but there is an atmosphere of wrongness, and that’s before people start dying in horrible ways. Some of the story is told in brief flashbacks, so the first minutes you’d think this was a completely different kind of film.
Get the blankets, light some candles and turn the lights off. You’re in for a real treat with this one.
Content warning: the twist. Sorry.
Final thoughts: when I came home last night at three, the man was waiting there for me.
