My quick rating – 4.4/10. A couple heads off to a remote cabin during a pandemic, hoping for some peace, quiet, and perhaps a little marital rehabilitation. Unfortunately, a new “guest” has other ideas. The world starts falling apart, and their romantic getaway turns into a fight for survival. This determined survivalist has no intention of sharing the apocalypse with anyone. Melaleuca sounds promising, right? Well, I was expecting a little more bang for my end-of-the-world buck.
Things kick off with Misha (Jess Salgueiro) delivering a rather serious monologue, the central message of which is, “You are not lost.” Salgueiro was easily one of the highlights of the Frasier reboot, so I was happy to see her here. We then get introduced to Arnold (Tom Keenan) and Patrick (Adam Hurtig), with the latter duct-taped to a chair while Arnold casually moves their checkers pieces around. Even hostage situations need a little recreational activity.
The movie uses illustrated doodle sequences to jump between the past and present, introducing us to the characters and giving us a broad overview of what’s happening. We get “Before,” followed by “The Happy Couple,” which had me expecting a healthy dose of sarcasm. Surprisingly, these two actually seem relatively happy. They just need a getaway, and the family cabin seems like the perfect place to reconnect. Famous last words.
Director Jeremy Guenette takes a slow-burn approach, gradually connecting the cabin getaway with the increasingly uncomfortable hostage situation. Arnold eventually receives a panicked phone call from his mother, giving us some insight into the chaos unfolding beyond their little hideaway. Naturally, he decides that sharing this rather important information with his wife can wait. Nothing says healthy communication quite like withholding news of a global catastrophe.
Meanwhile, Misha is struggling with a writing deadline, and watching her hunt-and-peck typing technique makes me wonder how she’s managed to get this far professionally. Perhaps the apocalypse will finally give her enough time to learn where the keys are. With everything going sideways, somebody also decides that taking acid is a perfectly reasonable next step. Honestly, at this point, who am I to judge?
Eventually, the various timelines catch up, and we discover exactly how Patrick ended up decorating that chair with duct tape. The “Now Where Were We” doodle helpfully brings us back around. Unfortunately, not everything lands. There’s a particular “I just got shot” performance that had me questioning whether the actor had actually been informed what was happening in the scene.
Melaleuca is an extremely self-contained indie thriller that centers around three main characters. Salgueiro is a shining star in it all, making sense of all the bouncing back and forth between marriage crisis, apocalyptic antics, and panic at the prospect of a pandemic situation.
I liked the concept and appreciated the unusual storytelling approach, but the payoff never quite matches the setup. A decent little indie effort, just one that left me wishing there was a bit more going on beyond the doodles and duct tape.
