By Robert Scucci
| Published
If you ever hear bumps in the night while staying at a seedy motel off the highway, it’s probably in your best interest to not order Looking Glass on-demand because it’ll ruin your night for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that the idea of somebody watching you through a one-way mirror during your most private moments is enough to make your skin crawl. I don’t know about you, but when I’m ordering a suicidal amount of takeout because I’ve been on the road without stopping all day, I don’t want to factor in the shame of somebody watching me unwholesomely gorge on cheesy bread and chicken wings between swigs of Diet Coke straight out of the 2-liter while looking for reruns of South Park on cable.
Secondly, Looking Glass isn’t a very good movie despite the fact that Nicolas Cage, a god among men, is doing his best with what he’s given.
Looking For A Fresh Start
After the death of their child, Ray (Nicolas Cage) and Maggie (Robin Tunney) do what any grieving couple would do in their situation: they buy a run-down motel off of Craigslist. The motel’s original proprietor, Ben, vanishes without a trace, which raises suspicion, but Ray puts his best foot forward, immediately gets to work getting the lay of the land, and begins various renovation projects to spruce the place up. Ray has his first encounter with Tommy (Ernie Lively), a lonely trucker who frequents the motel – he particularly likes room No. 10 – in the company of prostitutes before getting back on the road.
Meanwhile, a persistent deputy sheriff named Howard (Marc Blucas) begins to make his presence known in Looking Glass, as well as the fact that he’s searching for Ben, who left in a hurry before Ray’s arrival. Suspicious of the sheriff’s noseyness, and the sketchy behavior from the gas station attendants across the street who are watching his every move, Ray starts snooping around, eventually uncovering a secret tunnel that leads to a one-way mirror looking directly into room No. 10.
Do You See What I See?
Room No. 10, now occupied by a woman known as Cassie the Strawberry Blonde (Kassia Conway) and her BDSM lover from room No. 6, Jessica (Jacque Gray), is witnessed by Ray through the titular one-way looking glass, and he knows he shouldn’t be spying on his guests but can’t seem to help himself. Matters escalate when Howard informs Ray of a woman named Crissy, who was murdered shortly before he bought the motel, hinting that Ben was in some way involved. Not sure who to trust, Ray puts his walls up, which fractures his relationship with Maggie, who wonders where he’s wandering off to every night.
A Thriller With No Thrills
Looking Glass has the potential to be an effective thriller, but it’s too linear and out-in-the-open to stick the landing. The biggest problem I have with this film is that everybody who’s acting suspicious is suspicious– so much, in fact, that even though the film does a decent job hiding its primary antagonist, you can pretty much narrow it down to a few people because of how strange everybody is behaving. By the time I reached the third-act reveal, I didn’t experience a mind-altering revelation, but rather thought to myself, “oh yeah, that makes sense,” which does not make for a good thriller.
However, I can’t really fault the actors for working with the screenplay that was presented to them, as their performances in Looking Glass are solid all around. Set in a small desert motel off the highway somewhere between California and Las Vegas, it’s easy to believe the performances because living in the middle of nowhere for an extended period of time doesn’t leave you with much to do, making your imagination run wild, leading to a healthy amount of paranoia– especially if there’s an active murder investigation to consider.
At the end of the day, Looking Glass falls into the thriller-lite category, as it does generate suspense at the expected moments, but the whole thing’s so one-dimensional that you’re not going to be sitting at the edge of your seat for long.
As of this writing, you can stream Looking Glass for free on Tubi.
