Behind the scenes of Surveillance sits an underdog story with considerable appeal. A staggering 15 years passed between Jennifer Lynch’s directorial debut feature, 
Boxing Helena, and this, her second effort. Despite its patent absurdity, I rather fondly recall Boxing Helena, a film which is perhaps underrated due to its inability to stand up next to the dream narratives created by Lynch’s beloved father, David. And while Jennifer’s debut nightmare seemed unintentionally comic, the same will never be said of her prodigal dream, Surveillance. With solid, off-kilter performances from Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond, this is a brutal, tense film from start to finish. A good three quarters of the movie plays like an FBI procedural with a minor note of gratuitous horror. However, the dramatic reveal near the end turns the tables, leaving a film which I would never tend to like, but would hope to at least admire.
What makes that effort of admiration so difficult here is that unlike most horror films, which tend to make subtextual observations about some aspect of society or humanity, Lynch’s film is utterly pointless. Watching some of the interviews on the Blu-ray disc, a reference is made to the subject of child abuse, and that the film’s villains are themselves victims of abuse. While on reflection I can see the single reference to that idea, it is understated to the point of non-existence, failing to provide the necessary depth to redeem the film’s bloody narcissism. If Lynch is going to convince us – and more importantly, herself – that she’s her own filmmaker, then she should develop a story that actually says something in her own voice. Here we have FBI agents in the aftermath of a terrible crime spending time in a wood-paneled police station in a remote setting. That, of course, sounds a tad too familiar (in both senses of the word), which is both sad and disappointing.
Here are this morning’s Oscar-nominated films, alphabetically. The nominees for foreign language film and documentary feature are compiled at the end of the list. (Short format nominees are listed in a 
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