Written by Matt Swanson
Psychological thrillers are a challenging genre of film to get right. If you go too abstract and disorienting, you risk losing the audience in confusion and muddying the narrative. If you stay grounded in reality, you lose the spirit of uncertainty that makes psychological thrillers so riveting. This Tempting Madness does an effective job walking the line of unpredictable abstraction of the psyche, but loses much of its momentum to a familiar thriller shortcut.
This Tempting Madness is shrouded in an unsettling mystery. Mia (Simone Ashley) suffered horrific injuries when she plummeted from an airport balcony, barely surviving with her jaw wired together and her memories fragmented. As she recovers from her injuries, memories come back to her in bits and pieces, with her recollection as broken as her body. Missing from her hospital bedside is her husband, Jake (Austin Stowell). She keeps asking where he is, but either her family is deflecting the questions or she keeps forgetting the answer. As she begins to piece together her memories, her brother Ajay (Suraj Sharma) reveals to her that Jake is in jail for pushing Mia off of the balcony, trying to kill her.
Mia cannot believe this; she can only remember Jake as a loving husband and father. Her head reels, and she grows paranoid that people are hiding some truth from her. She wants to, needs to hear Jake’s side of the story. When she’s released from the hospital, more memories start coming back. Jake was incredibly anxious. She starts to remember their fights. Memories of Jake’s anger at his own embarrassment, insecurity and struggles start flooding back. Her paranoia gets worse as she wrestles with the idea that the same gentle and caring man might have tried to kill her. The film’s central tension rests on that incompatibility: whether deception comes from Mia’s own mind or from the people around her.
This Tempting Madness is wildly unpredictable. For the bulk of the runtime, there is no clear indication what direction the story will take. The plot’s trajectory swings back and forth like a pendulum as Mia tries to get to the bottom of the mystery of her fall. Mia’s suspicion, fear, and doubt make for a compelling, unstable ride. However, once the final act lays its cards out on the table, the film collapses much of its psychological uncertainty into a clinical trope that feels like more of a shortcut than a revelation. The ambiguity that made Mia’s perspective such a compelling mystery is reduced to a convenient explanation, draining much of the tension the film had earned. Even after losing much of its momentum, the story still ends in a spectacular climax and delivers a satisfying arc for Mia.
Stylistically, This Tempting Madness is quite effective with its use of surreal images to showcase Mia’s psyche. It builds a psychologically disorienting and disjointed ambience, which elevates the mystery of the central plot. However, the frequent atmospheric inserts sometimes come at the cost of pacing. Ashley, Stowell and Sharma contribute strong performances that help ground the film’s emotional highs in the midst of madness. This Tempting Madness has a lot of potential for a psychological thriller—especially in its surreal mystery and strong performances. But its answers don’t live up to the suspense and anticipation it so effectively builds.
