Movie Review: ‘The Escape’

Review by Caitlin Zeigler

Tara (Gemma Arterton) spends all of her time being her husband’s Mark (Dominic Cooper) play thing and a domestic housewife and mother to two young kids. Mark is overworked and believes he is supposed to go to work and come home and play with his kids on the weekend. He has a bit of a short temper and doesn’t do anything to help his wife because he thinks that he’s just supposed to be the breadwinner. Tara might be dealing with post traumatic stress disorder and she is suffering with the way her life is going. She doesn’t have friends, breaks from her kids or husband and she doesn’t feel like she is allowed to do anything. Her mother even told her to tough it out.

After hitting her breaking point, Tara packs a bag and goes to Paris. She immediately feels a sense of relief. She meets Philippe (Jalil Lespert) at a museum and feels happy, but she checks her phone and it’s full of missed calls and messages. Mark sounds exactly like how fed up Tara is in the messages. Tara was upset knowing she had to make a decision of going back to her family or staying in Paris. This film is well-written, but difficult to watch. It feels very real in how women are often in the domestic housewife role and no one thinks they are struggling or suffering. This is a well made drama, but might be too much to handle. The difference, of course, is that you don’t get to run off to Paris. It’s worth a watch if you can handle it.