Terrifying Radicalization Both Makes and Breaks ‘Come With Me’ [Review]

Come with Me, the latest from filmmaker Aaron Harvey (The Neighbor), is, and forgive me for saying this, unprecedented horror for unprecedented times. Not exclusively, of course—radicalization and the quiet erosion of a random nobody’s psyche have always been a risk, a kind of nebulous fear—but in Harvey’s unnerving feature, shot with the verisimilitude of a Fox News bulletin, the threat feels considerably more urgent than it has before in that classic “Yeah, this could happen” fashion.

Theo Rossi, stellar in The Saviors earlier this year, stars as Simon, a working-class guy having an especially difficult time. His best friend is grappling with a sick kid, his workplace is in a transitional period of new management, and he’s recently been the victim of a home robbery. His girlfriend, Rebecca (Kate French), is desperately trying to accelerate their relationship (reasonably, after several years), but Simon has less interest in marriage and kids, and more interest in Dalton Kirby (Ron Perlman, largely in voice-over) and his radical radio talk show.

The early beats are largely ripped from the headlines to successfully trigger discomfort. Kirby rails against “the man” and the “elite” without ever clarifying what that means beyond nebulous identity. Offhand conversations shift toward shooting practice and 3D-printed guns. It’s a precarious context of a society on the brink and individual personalities desperate to offload their ennui and nihilism without critically thinking about who, if anyone, is really the root cause.

All the while, Simon works out aggressively and slowly merges his fractured worldview with that of Kirby’s. He delicately tries to soft-launch his radicalism among friends (delightfully walking it back when he realizes it’s not landing) and is otherwise constrained from openly discussing his grievances with Rebecca, so he hermetically seals himself, all things considered, in his car, consuming more and more of Kirby’s radical rhetoric. That it ends in violence is inevitable.

Much like (or, reasonably, ), is a slow burn, and its political bent will prove make-or-break. The focus is exclusively on Simon, and while Rossi imbues him with delicate humanity, and Harvey and co-writer are mindful of never infantilizing or glorifying his burgeoning radicalism, the point-of-view can prove suffocating. This is, after all, a straight man convinced the world is plotting against him, and while that’s plenty terrifying, it’s much harder to acquiesce to staying firmly within head only.