'Eli' Entertains With Confident Absurdity (Review)

We're only a few days out from the first game of the 2019 World Series, so I'll begin this review with a baseball analogy. Eli, Netflix's latest original horror film, is not a home run. It's not an RBI triple, a double, or a line-drive single that sneaks past the short stop for a base hit. No, Eli is something else entirely. This is the film equivalent of stepping up to the plate with two outs and the game on the line, and surprising your opponent with a bunt. It's a baffling decision, but one that calls for a tremendous amount of confidence. Confidence in your precision as a bunting batter, as well as confidence in your speed as a runner. If you're thrown out at first base and your team loses the game, every media outlet and fan around the world will question your decision. If you make it safely to the base, though, those same naysayers will commend the play and the confidence it took to pull it off successfully. Eli is that very bunt, and goddammit, it's safe at first. 

Directed by Ciaran Foy (Sinister 2), Eli follows its titular character - a young boy with a disease that forces him to live in protective gear due to extreme and painful allergic reactions to the outdoors - as he enters a facility to be treated for his condition. Sealed off from the outside, the child is overjoyed to finally remove his protective gear and interact with his parents (Kelly Reilly & Max Martini) in a somewhat normal manner. However, Eli soon discovers that the facility he's being kept in is haunted and that the doctors who occupy it may not be what they seem. 

Eli defies logic in the sense that every last second of it is just ridiculous and absurd, but also, and more importantly, because that confident absurdity works in its favor. Foy's ability to take this story seriously and deliver it to us straight is a miracle in and of itself. His assured tone in the face of nonsense is the crowning achievement of this production. Not to be overlooked are the performances of Charlie Shotwell as sickboy himself, Kelly Reilly as his loving mother, and Lili Taylor as the potentially untrustworthy doctor. Shotwell in particular shoulders most of the weight and his performance is likable enough for viewers to remain invested (Child actors sometimes have the opposite effect) even when the story goes off the rails. 

But it's the extent to which the story goes off the rails that ultimately makes Eli such a recommendable film. It's hardly the best horror movie of 2019. It doesn't even belong in the discussion. Still, it's undeniably one of the most entertaining. It takes bold, bat-shit crazy risks with unwarranted confidence, and that alone makes this a must-see viewing experience. It's an underdog, and underdogs are easy to root for. 

By the time its insane climax came to a close, I was clamoring for a sequel that follows the remaining characters down the new path that the film had set them on. Will that ever happen? Unlikely. But, sometimes, despite the odds stacked against them, the bunter makes it to first base. 

Score: 3.25/5