The Third Day, on Netflix, had an interesting premise: an island where "you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave." The "third day" is when Jesus rose from the dead, so there may be some people coming back to life. Plus it stars Jude Law, who played gay characters in Wilde (1996) and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), so I'm in.
Update: It's hard to find. It keeps changing streaming services, from Netflix to Hulu to MAX, as if the universe doesn't want me to see it.
Scene 1: Sam (Jude Law) stops his car on a deserted road to call a woman: the money is in the office, 40,000 pounds cash. Don't call the police; don't let Amboy in the house. He stares into space for a long time, then walks into the woods. Everything goes blurry. Is he entering an alternate universe?
He stops at a brook, and lets a small striped shirt float away. Mourning a dead son.
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Scene 2: Suddenly Sam hears a girl yelling at her friend to let go of the rope. He rushes over just in time for a friend let go and run away. She is hanging herself! He cuts her down and asks if she wants to go to the hospital, but she just wants to go home.
On the way, he gives his back story: he used to work with troubled youth in social services, but now he runs a garden center in London; he's married with two daughters. Heterosexual identity established, he asks if someone is hurting or scaring her at home, but she won't say.
Weird detail: she asks for water, and then puts salt in it. Who drinks salt water? Are her people aliens out of the Cthulhu Mythos?
Home is Osea Island, across a narrow, winding causeway that's only open at low tide. Very stressful to get across.
Back story: Osea is a real island in Essex, accessible by a causeway at low tide twice a day. Over the years it has been home to a naval base and a rehab clinic, but now it's privately owned.
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They pass a amphitheater, a lot of porta-potties, weird giant figures, and brown-robed goblins attacking townsfolk with scissors. The Girl says that there are only 93 people living on the island, but this year they are opening their pagan cult festival to outsiders, hoping to turn it in to a music festival and raise some money.
Hundreds of people driving on that narrow causeway? They'll be driving right into the ocean.
Scene 3: The Girl doesn't want to go home to her dad (uh-oh), she wants to go to the pub, where the Martins take her into the kitchen, whisper anxiously, and occasionally peer out at Sam. He checks for cell phone reception -- none -- and looks at the pictures on the wall. Why are there three pictures of corpses?
Mr. Martin (Paddy Considine) returns and dumps a hasty explanation: "She wasn't trying to hang herself, it was just fooling around like kids do; she's not afraid of her father or anybody on the island; everything is fine. Thanks for bringing her home, but you should leave -- NOW!"But Sam has to get in touch with Aday from Scene 1 right away: he's a planning official who will be deciding on whether they can go forward with their plans to build a new center -- this afternoon!
Mr. Martin doesn't like that name -- "African, innit? Lots of African immigrants on the mainland. Everyone thinks that they cause trouble, but some are ok." Dude is racist.
After a long, inappropriate story about how he and his wife always wanted kids, but seven pregnancies didn't come to term, Mr. Martin offers to escort Sam to his car so he can LEAVE, NOW!
Scene 4: On the way, Mr. Martin reveals that the music festival will coincide with their "Esus and the Sea" ceremony,. Esus was a Celtic war god, but because of the similarity in the names, everyone thinks that the ceremony is about Jesus.
Left: Jude's butt
Mr. Martin begins to interrogate Sam: why were you so far from home, on such an important day? Also, Mrs. Martin recognized you, so you're not here by accident, are you?
Uh-oh, his car is blocked in, they can't find the driver, and the causeway will be closing in about 15 minutes. Don't they have ferries?
Mr. Martin changes the urgency of his advice to get out. "You'll have to spend the night. I'll put you in a room at the pub."
"No, I need to get off this island now!" Sam reveals that the burglars took 40,000 pounds in cash, that they were going to use to bribe Aday! That's sleazy, but not as sleazy as I ithought. Maybe he's lying.
Martin reaches the obvious conclusion: Aday stole your money. But why would he steal the money, when they were going to give it to him anyway?
More after the break