Starring Diana Agron (Glee and Acidman) and Melora Hardin (The Office and Caged), Clock is the latest horror movie to come from the Disney-owned media streaming platform.
The Storyline Behind Clock
Despite her husband’s wishes to conceive a child, Ella is still struggling to come to terms with the prospects of both birth and the nurture that follows. Being 37 and fast approaching the natural deadline, she realizes that she doesn’t have long left to make her husband happy and give in to the wishes of her father and closest friends.
At a routine health appointment, Ella shares her woes with the nurse to be offered a referral to a revolutionary cognitive behavior therapy treatment getaway, designed solely to help women spark their natural instinct to bear children.
All seems to go rather well, with Ella attending her therapy and undergoing a course of medication to help build up the levels of hormones required to give her the desire to conceive. However, on leaving the facility, she starts to suffer from a series of bizarre hallucinations as her body adapts to the prescribed tablets.
Diana Agron Takes the Spotlight in Clock
With a relatively small cast, the focus is so often on Agron in her leading role as the tormented Ella. Ranging from the calm and collected, to the outright unhinged, Agron perfectly covers each emotion with a practiced skill that few are cut out for.
Confusion, anger, and abject fear are played to the point of immersing the viewer in the life of Ella as she spirals into a chasm of madness and paranoia.
Clock Highlights a Very Real Problem with the Society of Today
The interesting topic threaded through the Hulu original is the fact that some women just don’t have that inherent urge to ‘go forth and multiply’ and in an ideal world, this should be just fine for those around them. However, as Clock so often – and so rightly – points out, this is seldom the case. Even to this day, women seem to have the milestone of pregnancy hanging over them like the Sword of Damocles throughout life.
It’s always good to see these things issues – that many don’t even perceive to exist – highlighted and exposed through the medium of theatre.
Clock is a Slow Burner that Won’t Keep you Awake at Night
For all its good intentions, Clock is slow, drawn out, and often disjointed. With just 92 minutes to tell a story, it’s difficult to understand why the writers would draw the movie out to such ends. There are way too many needless scenes that only serve to break concentration and allow boredom to rear its ugly head.
Aside from this, there is also very little in Clock that even tries to throw a scare or two in the direction of the viewer, which we found to be disappointing, given the message it portrays and the evident effort put in by Agron. To add insult to injury, the movie ends with a twist that simply doesn’t make any sense, leaving us with questions directed towards not only the magnitude of fluff but to the story itself.
Clock – Summary
Aside from the poignant message woven into the story and the perfect performance by Agron, Clock offers very little else to our favorite genre. If you push through the movie and somehow manage to refrain from sticking pins into your eyes, you will only be met with further disappointment and a bevy of hanging questions.
As a message to highlight a prevalent issue that is so often swept under the carpet, Clock will hit home and even provoke some unexpected thoughts. As a horror movie, however, there is nothing to find but the occasional hint of the fear that we all so crave.
