Tribeca Film Festival 2024 – A Desert is a haunting tale of deceit and the relentless progression of the inevitable. We open on Alex (Kai Lennox) who skulks around abandoned structures to photograph what was. His latest canvas is Yucca Valley. Here he drives for hours through empty communities littered with graffiti in hopes of capturing the ghosts of the past with his cumbersome equipment. What he doesn’t know is that he is being watched. Writer-Director Joshua Erkman and co-writer Bossi Baker craft a haunting tale that examines the desire to recapture the past while facing mortality. A Desert masquerades as a wandering thriller narrative, yet its approach betrays deeper questions.

Alex checks into room 6 at a roadside motel after a long day of photography. He calls home to his wife Sam (Sarah Lind) to check in and leave rambling messages of his activities. That’s when he hears a disturbing ruckus from the room next door. After a call to the front desk to report a disturbance, Renny (Zachary Ray Sherman) and his “sister” Susie Q (Ashley B. Smith) knock on Alex’s door to apologize and make amends. The evening passes, with Alex nursing a brutal hangover. Then his neighbor suggests a cool new spot in the middle of nowhere for some photography. After a suspicious amount of time, Alex’s wife back home is concerned and she hires Harold (David Yow) to investigate where Alex might have gone.

A Desert is a slow-moving thriller that asks us to slow down to take in the characters of the story as much as the story itself. Erkman and Baker wallow in the expanse of vacant buildings and days past, allowing their characters a chance to breathe. Alex desperately wants to recapture the success of his photography book from two decades before. Sam hopes to rescue her marriage to Alex. Harold, a hired gumshoe, hopes to validate his name. Meanwhile, the likes of Renny and Susie Q have come to terms with the wasteland they call home and have found a new way of life.

Sherman is a stands out as the unhinged Renny. This wirey creation screams danger and you sort of don’t really feel bad for anyone that falls victim to his blatant machinations. The other remarkable bit of work is in Yow‘s turn as Harold. This is a worn soul that still has a certain resourcefulness. He is flawed, yet endlessly watchable.

My biggest complaint with A Desert is how it simply can’t avoid giving in to the conventions of the usual thrillers. I suppose  I am complaining that I can’t have my cake and eat it too, but there is such a fresh approach to everything up to a certain point that it’s grating when we see the familiar story beats popping up.

All told A Desert is a worthy watch. Populated with solid performances and crafted with thought and a love of the thriller genre, it is a worthy diversion into a wasteland. Keep an eye out for what Joshua Erkman and Bossi Baker do next.

6 out of 10