ABOVE THE KNEE Review

Every so often, you find a movie that doesn't quite belong on the streaming service on which you find it.

To that end, my wife and I just watched the 1999 film Jawbreaker... on Shudder. The same Shudder that specializes in horror offerings. And it was showing the black comedy film Jawbreaker. It didn't make loads of sense, but that's where we found it. Every so often we find movies like that on Shudder, as if the men behind the service forgot what their mission statement was supposed to be.

Today's movie review is for Above The Knee, a new film that will be debuting on Screambox--another horror streaming service--on September 9th of this year. It, like Jawbreaker, does not feel like it is "supposed" to be on a horror streamer. Above The Knee, you see, is more of a drama movie with some mild gore involved. It doesn't really scream "horror".

Above The Knee is the story of Amir, a jobless man who is living his life with his long-time girlfriend, Kim. Amir, we quickly realize, has a mental health condition--Body Integrity Dysphoria--where he feels he is "meant" to be disabled. In his particular case, it presents as an overpowering urge to remove his own left leg.

Amir first learns of another person living nearby with the condition when he sees her on television talking about her situation. He goes to visit this woman, Rikke, and the two come to an agreement: Amir will follow through on his dream of having his leg amputated with Rikke's assistance, and Rikke will complete her desire to blind herself.

As the movie plays on, the story is just that: will Amir go through with it after all? Or will he overcome his disease? And along the way, will he trust those closest to him with his lifelong secret?

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ Above The Knee is pretty damn engaging, and I was enthralled from early on with the story and how it was being presented. What was Amir going to do? How would he do it? Would he end up telling those closest top him? How would they react? There were so many angles going on, and I decidedly was on board to watch them come to fruition. This was a movie where I sat up straight and paid attention at all times, sometimes with my hands holding up my chin like a cartoon character.

It's always a really good sign when a movie can do that to you. And it's true: at no point during the film was I bored or not buying into what the movie was selling. I will confess that this is likely not a movie for everyone--parts of it can be hard to watch, and you may feel TOO passionately about Amir (more on that in a second)--but it was definitely for me, at least.

+ Freddy Singh is... I don't want to say "incredible" here because I really hated Amir to the point where I almost don't want to give him the credit he deserves for making me feel that way. But that's certainly one of the takeaways you can have from this film, and Singh makes it work. He does a top-shelf job portraying Amir as a character worthy of conflict within the viewer. Do you despise him? Pity him? Want to give him a hug? He plays it as though every option is on the table. 

There is a saying I've heard: "your mental health is not your fault, but it is your responsibility". That was with me for the entirety of Amir's story. I was torn between thinking that I felt sorry for the guy because... god, could you imagine living with this condition? But at the same time, what he puts everyone around him through due to it is unacceptable, and I kind of wanted to slug the guy. And Singh portrays it all as a guy who has been dealing with it for years and is just tired. Great job!

- There is no real resolution to the Rikke subplot; at least not a satisfactory one. She is highly important to the story, but she has one last scene with Amir in the third act, and then that's it. It didn't feel like a conclusive moment to me, however. She just gets written out, though the last moment of the movie alludes to the fact that she is still around.

I just wanted something more definitive. Rikke and Amir's relationship was one of the aspects that really hooked me over the course of the movie, and as she kind of turns into a sympathetic antagonist--and again, like with Amir, your interpretation of her character could easily vary--I wanted something solid. What the movie gives you instead feels like they didn't know how to screenwrite their way out of this subplot.

- There is another subplot about Amir's leg rotting away from under him that ends the exact way you expect it to. The movie tries to switch it up on you and make you doubt your expectations, but I always knew where that plot was going. It also didn't feel like it had a completely purposeful conclusion, either. I don't really know what a better endgame for this angle would be, but for what we got, I didn't feel resolved.

Above The Knee is fully engrossing and really makes you think about what you take away from the Amir character and with what he is struggling. I was completely into the film as I watched it, and it makes the most of its runtime, coming in at under eighty minutes! I did think some of the third act conclusions were a touch unsatisfactory, but they didn't ruin the movie for me at all.

🍿 SCORE = 63 / 100