Layla dreams of a family.
Work at an isolated cattle ranch in Australia, side by side with her husband Jack, Layla (Talia Zucker) looks forward to having a child, some day soon. She's even started choosing shades of blue to paint her child's room.
Jack (Ashley Zukerman) is preoccupied with developing cattle clones, but has not yet cracked the code. The new clones live only a short while before Jack must try again. The couple work together, completely isolated from the outside world, yet Jack has zoned Layla out.
Soft spoken as he is, he treats Layla more like an adjunct, rather than a partner. Still, every relationship is different, and Layla is patient, dutifully caring for her ranching, household, and marital duties, until one day she comes face to face with an intruder on the ranch, which changes everything.
Written by Will Howarth, Talia Zucker, and Tom McKeith, the original screenplay is spare in its details, though it provides more than enough information to establish its characters and setting the stage for further, rather surprising developments. Directed by Howarth and McKeith, the film easily morphs from an atmospheric mystery into a gripping thriller.
Initially, the film reminded me of Billy O'Brien's superb Isolation (2005), which was also set on an isolated farm and explored the idea of genetic experiments before tipping into gory horror. The rural environment, where people tend to be isolated and far from any help, lends itself to tales of horror. Whereas Isolation was set in Ireland and played to the feeling of being trapped in a dark and gloomy farm, In Vitro plays with the wide-open feeling of an open range in Australia, where any help is far away.
In both environments, it's every person for himself. Layla soon comes to realize that she can only count on herself to survive the peril that envelops her. She must stake out her own identity and then act in accordance with it.
The filmmaker have crafted a compelling thriller that is short on nonsense and long on suspense. For every cliche that they embrace, ultimately they reject the easy answers, in favor of a conclusion that is completely satisfying.
The film enjoyed its world premiere at the Sydney Film Festival in June 2024. It enjoyed its North American premiere at the Austin Film Festival this past Friday and screens again tonight.