TIFF 2022 Film Review: Sanctuary
ZACHARY WIGON’S SANCTUARY IS A BARBED ROMANCE FOR SICKOS
A knock-down-drag-out battle of wits within the confines of a hotel room, Zachary Wigon’s Sanctuary is a two-handed chamber piece for the ages. Sexy, twisted, and eager to draw blood, the film explores the whirlwind disintegration of a relationship that slowly chips away at the barriers between fantasy and reality, class and control. One of my favorites of the festival. Minor spoilers ahead…
Hal Porterfield (Christopher Abbott), boyish heir to his family’s hospitality empire, answers a knock at his hotel door. Soon after, he finds himself in the midst of a corporate vetting process as a prim and pointed attorney named Rebecca (Margaret Qualley) completes her intense due diligence - the elder Porterfield is dead, and Hal is poised to inherit it all. But something is immediately off: Hal fibs about seemingly innocuous details and the blonde Rebecca - clearly wearing a wig - begins a line of questioning that slowly devolves into a sexually demeaning interrogation. Before long, Hal is half naked on the marbled tile of the bathroom floor, scrubbing away as Rebecca verbally crushes him like worthless trash. Turns out, it’s all staged: Rebecca is a dominatrix, and Hal is her most lucrative client who - as a submissive - meticulously scripts every single encounter for maximum humiliation.
This early, first act swerve is just one of many turns in Zachary Wigon’s Sanctuary, an account of a bare-knuckle duel for sexual - and emotional - dominance within the confines of a hotel room. With their long-term dom-sub relationship, Hal and Rebecca are tethered to one another: Hal gets to fulfill a fantasy of rigidity and structure after a lifetime of privilege and flouting the rules; Rebecca, meanwhile, gets to exert full control over one aspect of her life, all the while stuffing her coffers with the cold hard cash of a billionaire’s son. But Sanctuary asks: What happens when the perfect symbiotic codependence is detonated? What happens when only one party - the meek, beta male Hal - wants out?
“As a hermetically-sealed, dialogue-driven two-hander, Sanctuary gets points for degree of difficulty alone, but to do so with its unique brand of propulsive verve is a feat.”
As a hermetically-sealed, dialogue-driven two-hander, Sanctuary gets points for degree of difficulty alone, but to do so with its unique brand of propulsive verve is a feat. Of course, it helps when the hands steering belong to Christopher Abbott and Margaret Qualley, whose venom-tongued chemistry courses through the film’s claustrophobic veins. As they engage in their games of psychological oneupmanship, Micah Bloomberg’s (Amazon’s Homecoming) acidic script slowly reveals its layers, musing about the nature of control and the extents we go through to seize it, over ourselves and others. Toggling effortlessly between its two modes - twisted romance and nasty thriller - Sanctuary escalates via a powder keg of tension as breathtaking as it is uproarious, never forgetting its iron will to entertain through its demented acts of blackmail, extortion, and sex at knifepoint.
Despite its single location and blistering tête-à-tête, Sanctuary resists its stageplay trappings. Wigon mixes the perfect ingredients for this volatile little cocktail, and it all feels like a real movie rather than a locked-down adaptation; with its immersive soundscapes and Ludovica Isidori’s velveteen visuals affectingly tracking the narrative’s shifting power dynamics, the film makes the most of its confined quarters. And of course, it’s all in service of Qualley and Abbott, swirling around two very real performances whose neuroses, toxicity, and passion sum up to a wreck you can’t keep your eyes off of. Even its ending, toeing the line between cathartically romantic and deflatingly tidy, mostly works through the sheer force of their charisma. As a sexy, fucked-up chess match, Sanctuary is irresistible; as a chamber piece, it’s the paragon.
