Await Further Instructions movie review (2018)

Unfortunately, director Johnny Kevorkian and screenwriter Gavin Williams not only put their Beanstalk-high concept to ill use, but also fail to keep their drama compelling on a scene-to-scene basis. So what starts as mere fable ultimately becomes an unintelligible parable about how the road to Brexit was paved with xenophobia (accurate) and a media-engineered plot to brainwash the masses (Uh, come again?). Or, put another way: "Await Further Instructions" starts off like a classic episode of Rod Serling's searing, imaginative "The Twilight Zone," but ends like a feature-length installment of Forest Whitaker's unfocused, dismal "The Twilight Zone."

Comparisons between "Await Further Instructions" and "The Twilight Zone" are hard to avoid given that Williams's stage-y scenario is also an extended commentary/diagnostic on what ails modern society. There are other superficial similarities—especially the film's real-time-style pacing and central location—but the biggest is Williams and Kevorkian's unadorned, flat style of dramaturgy. Just listen to the way these characters interact with each other: they're one-dimensional foils, each one reflecting the other's defining ideology. This was rarely a major problem when Serling presided over "The Twilight Zone" since he, as series creator and head writer, often excelled at dialogue (not to mention monologues) that had psychological depth, political insight, and poetic rhythm. 

But the individual members of the Milgram family are only important inasmuch as they speak to generalizations about their respective stock characters. It's a domino chain: the family's racist patriarch ("The Strain" star David Bradley) butts heads with go-along-to-get-along authoritarian son Tony (Grant Masters), which puts extra pressure on Tony to silence any and all dissent from his prodigal son Nick (Sam Gittins) and Nick's quasi-progressive girlfriend Annji (Neerja Naik).

Annji is not much of a character since all she does is stand up for herself whenever her skin color proves to be a controversial topic of discussion: she's not Caucasian, which makes Bradley's dad angry, which makes Annji and Nick unhappy and Tony extra-pissy. Unfortunately, Tony usually talks loudest, so we spend too much time watching Naik and Gittins tentatively stand up for themselves, but quickly sit right back down after Masters glowers and pouts at them. That power dynamic makes sense—and is sadly all too real—but it's not especially dynamic when there's no poetry in the characters' dialogue, nor any insight as to why they are the way they are. Political proselytizing is one thing, but monotonous bickering is another.