10 Cloverfield Lane, can-do-no-wrong producer J.J. Abrams’ sort-of follow-up to his 2008 Cloverfield just hit the DVD/Blu-ray market, where it’s winning praise all over again. For some viewers the movie eerily mirrors the US presidential election. (Mild spoilers ahead.) Like the American electorate, Michelle, the protagonist, has been knocked unconscious and wakes to find herself held captive — or protected, we’re not sure — by John Goodman’s possibly insane character. He claims that danger is everywhere, that he’s trying to protect her from harm and that he represents her only chance at survival. In other words he does everything but admit he really lives at Trump Tower. (What she doesn’t know is if anything he says is true.)
[Long Before Cloverfield, John Goodman Got Wild In Talking Heads Video]
Director Dan Trachtenberg, who took over the chair from Abrams for this one, might be spinning a brilliantly incisive allegory about America in this perilous political moment. Or he might just be entertaining — and scaring — the hell out of us. In describing the dilemma of 10 Cloverfield Lane, Matthew Jacobson at The Spectrum succinctly sums up what GOP voters face while he sums up the movie:
“Our protagonist could stay in the bunker and face the possibility of Howard being a far more malevolent person than he lets on, or she could find a way to escape to the outside world and potentially face an even greater adversary.”
