Sharp Corner review – Ben Foster unravels in smart, darkly compelling thriller

Actor plays a father desperate to prove his worth in an entertainingly nasty look at dangers of entitled mediocrity

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: happy family moves into dream home but discovers it’s actually a nightmare.

It’s a setup so numbingly common that it’s started to border on parody. From smug moving day pizza on the box-strewn floor to hearing louder and louder bumps in the night to arguing over when and how to leave, it’s a descent that’s propped up far too many genre films. At the start of Sharp Corner, which quietly premiered at last year’s Toronto film festival, you’d be forgiven for expecting yet more of the same. But here, the threat is far more unusual and the nature of the unravelling far less predictable, the plot direction mirroring the title before it even comes into view.

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