Film Review – The Aviary

“The Aviary” was produced during the COVID-19 pandemic, offering small production demands to writer/directors Jennifer Raite and Chris Cullari, who create a tale that’s performed by a handful of actors, shot mostly with exteriors positioned far away from the general public. Scale isn’t the goal here, with the screenplay aiming to provide an intense psychological study of frayed characters confronting their mental decline, hoping for liberation as they’re pulled into possible insanity. “The Aviary” analyzes the ways of cult control, and it’s a fascinating topic, but Raite and Cullari don’t have a feature-length concept to develop here. They have a short film instead, noticeably struggling to dream up conflicts and turns of plot that gets the endeavor to a 90-minute run time. Leads Malin Akerman (also one of 21 producers on the project) and Lorenza Izzo try to work themselves into a frenzy, but the effort’s thinness and lack of juicy surprises keep the picture middling at best. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com