A SACRIFICE _Sadie meets the guru of a cult_ Clips (2024) Sadie Sink

A SACRIFICE _Sadie meets the guru of a cult_ Clips (2024) Sadie Sink

A SACRIFICE "Sadie meets the guru of a cult" Clips (2024) Sadie Sink, Eric Bana, Drama Movie
© 2024 - Vertical
An academic’s visiting teenage daughter falls under the sway of a sinister cult connected to his own research in “A Sacrifice.” Suspended between straightforward thriller and something loftier, Jordan Scott’s sophomore feature — headlined by Sadie Sink and Eric Bana — is a slick but unsatisfying narrative muddle. It has the feel of a literary adaptation that doesn’t quite translate to a different medium: While the individual thematic elements are intriguing enough, they just don’t come together on screen in sufficiently coherent or atmospheric form. The result is a movie that ultimately falls short on both suspense and ideas, though it remains watchable enough. Vertical is releasing to U.S. theaters on June 28.

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Other territories will be seeing it under the title “Berlin Nobody,” while English author Nicholas Hogg’s source novel was called (and is set in) “Tokyo.” So one can safely assume Scott, whose career has primarily been in commercial brand campaigns, took considerable liberties with that material. Her first feature since 2009’s boarding-school drama “Cracks,” which was likewise produced by father Ridley, at first looks headed in a direction mixing elements of crime procedural and “Taken.”

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Ben Monroe (Bana) is an American university professor who previously wrote a nonfiction bestseller called “The Science of Loneliness.” Now he’s a guest lecturer at an institution in the German capital, while working on a next tome to be titled “The Power of Group Think.” But he’s also traveled here at the behest of his wife in California, who wants at least a trial separation. He’s not happy about that, nor evidently is their teenage daughter Mazzy (Sadie Sink), who’s been acting out — so mom has sent her to dad for the summer as “punishment.” Mazzy is just fine with that, particularly as she almost immediately meets a cute local boy, Martin (Jonas Dassler).

But Martin is more calculating — and disturbed — than he looks. He prods his new friend towards the vaguely environmental-spiritual organization he’s involved in, which she’s too naive to notice looks very much like an apocalyptic cult. Charismatic leader Hilma (Sophie Rois, doing that thing of suggesting fanaticism by refusing to blink) calls for acolytes to discard “worldly attachments” so that the planet may “purify and heal.”

We’ve soon little doubt that her “sacrifice is redemption” line is behind a string of ritual suicides that “social psychologist” Ben gets tipped to via colleague Max’s (Stephan Kampwirth) acquaintance with Nina (Sylvia Hoeks), whose job is “profiling dangerous criminals for the government.” As Mazzy gets nose-led into trouble by Martin, Ben similarly falls for bait dangled by Nina. It is neither surprising nor convincing that these things all turn out to be conspiratorially connected.

Scott gets decent performances from an able cast, and “A Sacrifice” is handsomely presented. As with “Cracks,” however, her polished style (bedecked with flourishes like slo-mo and reverse-motion shots) isn’t potent enough to compensate for a lack of core substance. Characters spouting the odd pretentious quasi-sociological or politicized doomsday pronouncement do little to enrich our grasp on the sketchily-drawn cult, or even of their own individual psychologies. That leaves the bad guys eventually leaning towards caricature, with the good ones too bland to generate much empathy. While pacing is reasonably brisk, and there’s mortal peril after a point, actual tension stubbornly refuses to arise in the storytelling.

The director has termed this a “magical realist thriller.” A more fable-like approach might indeed have let viewers accept the logic gaps and underdeveloped themes as more allusive than lacking, yet what’s on screen comes off as too literal-minded for such allowances. So “A Sacrifice” just feels like a pulpy genre setup that increasingly drifts into conceptual ether, something it does not have the mysterioso intensity to render a plus. Not that Scott’s collaborators couldn’t have managed that if given a chance — in particular, Julie Kirkwood’s cinematography and Volker Bertelmann’s original score have moments of enigmatic ambiguity that the film as a whole only aspires to.

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A Sacrifice, Eric Bana, Jordan Scott, Sadie Sink

Get ready to see Sadie Sink in the new psychological thriller A Sacrifice, where she joins a cult group in Berlin.
Sink's character Mazzy falls in with a mysterious group promising to purify and heal the Earth in unsettling ways.
Directed by Jordan Scott, A Sacrifice follows Mazzy's father as he races to save her from a dangerous cult.
It has been some time since viewers last saw Stranger Things star Sadie Sink on-screen. Last appearing in Brendan Fraser's big comeback film The Whale, Sink has been hard at work with the rest of the cast in Hawkins on the massive final season of the hit 80s-soaked horror series. However, she'll grace theaters again this month thanks to the new psychological thriller A Sacrifice and Collider has an exclusive sneak peek at her role in the movie. The footage sees her come face-to-face with Enemy At the Gates star Sophie Rois, who gives her an unsettling briefing about what her group stands for.

Before she can meet Rois's character, Sink's Mazzy first gives her new boyfriend (Jonas Dassler) a hug. Since the pair have hit it off, the mysterious local boy has been her guide to the underground party scene in Berlin and now looks to introduce her to a group led by his mother. Though she's initially hesitant with all the masked individuals roaming through the lobby, they make their way to Rois, who welcomes Mazzy with literally open arms. She tries to make Mazzy feel welcome and gives her the rundown on their cause - to "release ourselves from our destructive behaviors, our worldly attachments to better our beautiful Earth, to purify and heal." Rois then gives Mazzy a necklace and recites another ambiguous line about life and everything being a part of a greater whole, leaving her uneasy and unsure of how to respond.

Written and directed by Cracks helmer Jordan Scott, A Sacrifice primarily follows Ben Monroe (Eric Bana), Mazzy's father and an American social psychologist investigating a local Berlin cult that may be responsible for some disturbing happenings in the area. While the rebellious Mazzy is occupied with her new friend, Monroe is buried in his work, following a trail until it inevitably intersects with his daughter's path. Realizing that the group she's fallen in with is the cult he's after, he races desperately to save her from their clutches before he loses her forever. Sylvia Hoeks also stars.

'A Sacrifice' Adapts an Acclaimed Novel
Scott, who happens to be the daughter of legendary filmmaker Ridley Scott, adapted the "emotionally turbulent" tale from the acclaimed third novel of author Nicholas Hogg, titled Tokyo Nobody. The film takes a few liberties with its plot, however, with the original story taking place in Tokyo and following Monroe as he seeks out his former lover, with Mazzy and cult survivor Koji becoming intertwined in his search. A star-studded creative team helps bring Scott's vision to life, with her father serving as a producer alongside Michael Pruss, Jonas Katzenstein, Maximilian Leo, and Georgina Pope.

A Sacrifice arrives in theaters on June 28. Check out our exclusive sneak peek above.