Themes of captivity explored in Atom Egoyan’s latest movie The Captive

The Captive is the story of the effects on a couple after the disappearance of their daughter.

Mireille Enos and Ryan Reynolds in The Captive. Courtesy Ego Film Arts and Film Farm

The Captive is the latest film from the Canadian director Atom Egoyan. It explores the devastating effects on a couple of the disappearance of their daughter, who is kidnapped after the husband leaves her alone in their car for a few minutes at a roadside cafe. We talked to Egoyan about the film and its troubling themes.

Would you describe The Captive as a thriller?

Yes, in as much as it centres on a young girl who is kidnapped and eight years later devises a plan for her escape. She is named Cassandra in reference to the figure in Greek mythology who expresses herself in riddles and is able to see into the future. In the film, Cass provides Matthew – her father – a clue in the form of a riddle that only he can decipher. In this way she sets up the possibility of finally ­escaping her captor.

Many other characters in the film seem to be prisoners in one way or another.

Tina, Cass’s mother, is certainly held captive by her grief. Since her daughter’s disappearance she has separated from her husband. She visits Nicole – a detective working in the child exploitation unit – every year on Cass’s birthday as a sort of ritual in the hopes of finding her lost daughter. Nicole herself, as we discover within the film, is also captive to her past, which also explains why she’s so invested in her cases. The men in the film are also captives of their personal histories.

In your films, reality is often ­distorted. The same story is told from different angles.

I don’t see this as a distortion of reality, but a way of accessing my characters’ perception of how their specific reality is constructed. The timeline may be non-linear, but it feels true to the fractured sense of time and space these people are negotiating. Watching a film should be a completely immersive experience. When the viewers commit themselves to this journey, they should be rewarded for their curiosity and sense of exploration. I want the viewer to be aware of what they are watching, but to also lose themselves into the reality of the emotional issues that are being confronted. It’s a delicate balance.

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