A couple goes into the woods in Paramount+‘s original film Significant Other, but what comes out? This supernatural-tinged thriller dabbles with the supernatural and the environmental but ultimately finds the greatest horror exists in a relationship that’s taken a turn for the worse. With emerging millennial scream queen Maika Monroe and everyone’s favorite nice guy Jake Lacy, it’s quite a battle of the sexes who could soon turn out to be exes.
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Clad in their Patagonia sweaters and flannel shirts, Harry (Lacy) and Ruth (Monroe) set off for some Pacific Northwest backpacking. It’s against her better judgment as more of a beach girl, but she powers through her qualms to appease her boyfriend. There’s a sense of unease from the beginning of Significant Other when some sort of extraterrestrial being attacks a one-horned deer in the forest, and that only gets amplified as the tension ratchets up between the partners with a botched cliffside proposal. Where the film goes from here is better left unspoiled because the issues with which the couple enters the woods are not going to get resolved in a civil conversation.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: To borrow a phrase from Decider contributor Charles Bramesco, Significant Other wants to run with the big boys in the “metaphorror” subgenre. Think high-minded horror like Alex Garland’s Men or Annihilation where the action on-screen is always meant to have a larger thematic or symbolic resonance. Whether it succeeds in achieving what it evokes, however, is another question.
Performance Worth Watching: Monroe is once again proving she’s one of our best working actresses in the horror genre, but it’s Jake Lacy who proves the most fascinating presence in Significant Other. While he emerged in the past decade as one of the industry’s pre-eminent boys next door, he’s taken some fascinating roles to complicate the nice guy image he cultivated through projects like Obvious Child and High Fidelity. His role here is similar to his Emmy-nominated turn in The White Lotus, where all it takes is a single displeasing moment for an affable guy to reveal how thin-skinned and entitled he is.
Memorable Dialogue: “What are you?” Ruth asks Harry in a moment of utter bewilderment at his motivations (you’ll see and understand more with context). “I’M PISSED OFF!” he replies with surprising fury, underscoring just how much Lacy is willing to depart from his trademark grinning gents.
Sex and Skin: All that fighting, and none of the other F-word that couples do.
Our Take: Significant Other does not deserve the rich interiority Monroe brings to Ruth and the oozing smarm Lacy adds to Harry. Filmmakers Dan Berk and Robert Olsen can’t quite figure out how to fit their dynamic duo’s naturalistic relationship decay into the larger sci-fi/horror conceit driving the film’s back half. It never quite recovers from a bold choice at its midpoint when the story appears to jump the shark … only to have a character all but literally jump the shark in the water later.
Our Call: SKIP IT! Significant Other is, well, rather insignificant. At 84 minutes, it’s somehow both mercifully short and entirely overstuffed with ideas that it cannot fully execute. Maika Monroe and Jake Lacy at least seem like they’re having a good time, but the same cannot necessarily be said of those watching them.
Marshall Shaffer is a New York-based freelance film journalist. In addition to Decider, his work has also appeared on Slashfilm, Slant, Little White Lies and many other outlets. Some day soon, everyone will realize how right he is about Spring Breakers.
