Director: David Mackenzie
Writer: Justin Piasecki
Stars: Willa Fitzgerald, Lily James, Sam Worthington
Synopsis: A broker of lucrative payoffs between corrupt corporations and the individuals who threaten them breaks his own rules when a new client seeks his protection to stay alive.
Relay, the new David Mackenzie film celebrating its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, opens with a sequence that feels made for me. We follow Hoffman (the always wonderful Matthew Maher) into a diner on Houston street in New York. The camera stays over his shoulder for as long as possible until he arrives at his seat. He’s clearly looking for somebody, but the heat in his eyes conveys he might find something (or someone) he doesn’t want to see. A massive, blacked-out SUV then pulls up alongside the diner and out steps a businessman played by the great Victor Garber! The two sit at the same table, one with menace in his eyes and the other with sadness and pain. The two discuss exactly what’s going to happen next. And Maher delivers a line that, within the opening minutes of the film, details all that Relay is setting out to examine. “I thought evil would look different… but evil just looks like everyone else.”
Relay is more than a film about whistleblowers. Instead, it delves into the murky lines of morality in spaces where whistleblowing occurs. Tom (an incredible Riz Ahmed) is a man who has set himself up to make money in that space between right and wrong. And in turn, the viewer is able to peel away layer after layer of thoughts and judgements as we learn more about what’s occurring. Even better, for large portions of the film, Tom barely utters a word. I would argue one of the great missteps of the film is that he speaks at all. Having him remain silent would have been excellent for two reasons. First, it’s admirably bold, and works exceptionally well whenever the film operates in silence. Secondly, Ahmed is delivering such brilliance with his eyes alone. He’s the type of actor who doesn’t need extended monologues. He arguably works best in the spaces between dialogue, and it would have been so exciting to see a film capitalize on such a trait. Regardless, it’s not as if Tom speaks a ton in this film. At least, he doesn’t do so with his own mouth.
To protect his identity, and because it makes for an interesting conceit of the film, Tom uses a phone-relay service. Designed for those who are hard of hearing, relay services are used as a middle-man for phone calls. A message is typed to the service, the third party on the phone reads the message, and then does so back-and-forth for the remainder of the call. Upon hanging up, all information from the call and callers is wiped away by law. Where Tom comes in is when both parties need representation to broker a deal between whistleblower and company. He ensures neither party receives blowback or harm of any kind, and in turn he makes more than a pretty penny. And it’s in his internal dilemma, and the overall hook of the film, that Relay questions integrity.
It shouldn’t come as a shock to anybody that companies do all they can to protect their bottom-line. One doesn’t need to turn to movies about whistleblowing to understand that. But what happens when whistleblowers decide that the pressure becomes too much? Sarah (Lily James) finds herself in that exact predicament. After being clearly monitored non-stop and having her car set ablaze, all she wants to do is return the sensitive information she has in her possession. And while it may not be the most noble of actions, Relay poses the question of who are we to judge? In the face of such instigation and genuine threat from companies that only care about numbers on a spreadsheet, can she be blamed for wanting to simply return to the mundanity of everyday life? It’s certainly a noble act to expose fraud and criminal behavior in the hopes of bettering the world, but there is an undeniable cost. And coming face-to-face with it is understandably frightening. One of the greatest strengths of Relay is conveying that menace and the fear that it brings silently. So rarely relying on actual one-on-one conversations during scenes of dialogue, the almost-flat delivery of the phone-relay service makes for a film that emphasizes how companies can oftentimes dehumanize those that work for them (or that threaten their bottom-line).
When the film operates in this moral gray area between Tom and Sarah and the goons sent by the company (a terrifically fun Sam Worthington and Willa Fitzgerald), Relay is a tightly-wound thriller. It’s only in the third act when it clearly over-extends itself more than a bit and goes off-the-rails. So much of Relay is exciting from a filmmaking perspective because it places an emphasis on sparsity. That is its biggest strength, and between having Tom talk more and more as the film goes on, as well as leaning fully into action that falls flat, it almost feels as if Relay isn’t all that confident in the goodwill it has amassed over the course of its runtime. Within the final 15 minutes, Relay finds itself puttering to the finish line. Still, the journey up to those last couple of sequences is exciting. Nobody could ever convince me Ahmed wearing a variety of fun costumes in a quasi-heist thriller set in New York wouldn’t be worth a watch. The rest of its characters may not have all that much to do, but what’s present is serviceable enough. The glimmers of thrill and excitement audiences have come to expect from a filmmaker like Mackenzie are definitely felt. In that regard, Relay will likely be well-received despite its flaws both obvious and subtle.
Relay celebrated its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. For more information on the film, head right here.
