Review by Zach Dennis
Albee and Walker’s marriage is on the rocks.
A young couple who married even younger, the two are headed to an Airbnb in the mountains to work through exercise books on staving off divorce and maybe reconcile their relationship. It’s clear Walker (Taylor Gray) is the instigator of the idea, while Albee (Amber Midthunder) is skeptical anything can be fixed.
Once they arrive, they meet their host, Carly (Bethany Anne Lind), who immediately realizes the clear divide among her two guests.
Amber Midthunder and Taylor Gray in ‘The Wheel’
Carly lives with her boyfriend Ben (Nelson Lee) and they’re preparing to get married themselves. While Ben discourages getting involved in these strangers problems, Carly offers help and involves her own relationship in the storm brewing between the married couple.
The Wheel, unfortunately, is one of those movies where you can guess what’s coming next all along the way. Walker and Albee get in a fight and she will react this way. Carly questions Ben’s commitment to their upcoming marriage and this will happen. Over and over again, the plot beats are pretty transparent.
Gray and Midthunder do their best with the material, but I’m not sure there was ever enough here to really make something special. An added piece of plot includes the two meeting while living in a foster home so neither has a family to go back to if they do break up, but that always feels half-baked and never fully explored over the course of the film. Rather, it feels like a plot beat added to distinguish the film from other marriage on the rocks movies.
As the film moves along, it’s clear that the central couple has a chance at reconciliation while the couples around them seem more fraught than they were at the beginning, but that always where this felt like it was headed. If they decided to break up, where would this movie go? Would it just end with the two of them going into different directions? And then what?
It never seemed like there was a clear path to go, and by the end, you half want something to jump out of the woods to shake things up.
Amber Midthunder in ‘The Wheel’
Comparing this to recent movies of similar ilk, such as Marriage Story, what is lacking in The Wheel is a real sense of history between its two main characters and a way to convey that within the confines of this story. Instead, we’re given small moments where they’re interacting with each other — only to have one thing start them up again and dissolve the whole moment. We’re never really offered a sense of who these people are other than they met at this foster home and have really only known one another.
The idea is sound, but nothing in The Wheel compels you to think more deeply about relationships, communication and marriage overall.