For a first full-length feature, writer/director Ben Goodger’s Year 10 is a remarkably assured endeavour. It’s set in a post-apocalypse time and a nondescript country. It also reduces the enormity of the tragic state of the world to the actions of just one man. That man is Jake (Toby Goodger).
Early on Jake comes across as timid and overwhelmed by the reduction of humanity to basic survival. When his father (Duncan Lacroix) is murdered by marauders, Jake’s world is further reduced to just one person, his female friend played by Hannah Khalique-Brown. This brings out a survival instinct that was little known to him until this time.
The film has a tension that builds and builds and this gives things an uneasy quality that is hard to turn away from and never lets up. Being completely free from dialogue also makes the physical actions of the actors paramount and in this respect the cast delivers. The visual effect artist Silvia Lara Leoni also sells the hopelessness with set design and make-up.
The cast members look suitably gaunt with thread-bare clothes and sunken eyes and in these sordid and desperate times, even a glimmer of humanity stands out. Jake’s quest provides that glimmer. He is relentless in his actions to save his female friend and you get swept up in his actions and even when he crosses the line into barbarism you still root for his success.
Year 10 is now available on DVD & Digital, including APPLE TV, PRIME VIDEO, & GOOGLE PLAY in Australia & New Zealand!
Rob Hudson
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