[Film Review] Ultrasound (2021)

Ultrasound (2021) is an intriguing watch, keeping you on your toes, allowing you to fall for its understated approach to a high concept plot before throwing revelations thick and fast after revealing a couple of plot twists, leaving you reeling with the same thoughts as its three protagonists; how do you know what is real? 

Starring Vincent Kartheiser as Glen, a man whose car gets a flat tire and finds his way to the house of couple, Art (Bob Stephenson) and Cyndi (Chelsea Lopez). Art is super kind and hospitable, but expertly persuasive as he encourages Glen to stay the night in the marital bed. Cyndi becomes pregnant and wants to leave Art due to his increasingly odd behaviour. But Glen and Cyndi are being watched by some shady figures. We meet Shannon (who is brilliantly played by Breeda Wool), a therapist employed at a ‘cutting edge’ facility where she believes they are working on new psychological methods to help patients resolve their trauma, and this is where she encounters Glen and Cyndi.

The characters are this film’s strength. There is one stereotype which, luckily, is in the B plot, but Glen and Cyndi in particular feel very normal, trying to get through their surprise pregnancy and making it work. We get layers to Shannon to understand her anxiousness of being in a new role and wanting to impress while also balancing her gut instincts that all might not be as it seems. Bob Stephenson as Art is wonderfully disarming. The set design is another highlight. The simpleness of it all, the vapid empty apartments with no soul, the minimalist office spaces with no personality mirrors the plot brilliantly.

Ultrasound is director Rob Schroeder’s feature debut and he shows a real competency in telling a story with multiple strands and multiple truths. There is a moment as we enter the third act when I felt like this was not going to come out right. But slowly everything starts to fall into place, explanations are given and my nervousness went away as I realised we were in safe hands. I really look forward to seeing what Schroeder’s next project is.

RELATED ARTICLES

---

---

EXPLORE

---

MORE ARTICLES

---

---