A dramatic thriller about Daphne, a young woman who moves to the Oregon Coast with her boyfriend, Roger, when he inherits his childhood beach house, only to discover that Roger hasn’t been completely honest about his past.

Written, produced, and directed by Sam Zalutsky, Seaside (2018) is a romance thriller light on thrills and heavy on drama, fueled by excellent performances, including a Tony Award nominee. This scenic melodrama is beautiful and may even have more twists than the Usual Suspects, with its interesting premise of double-crossing, love, and strained relationships.

Seaside follows lovers Daphne (Ariana DeBose) and Roger (Matt Shingledecker), who are from two very different worlds. Daphne works a minimum wage job and takes care of her mother, while Roger has lived a privileged life despite having lost his mother at a young age. When Roger’s judgemental father passes away, they realize they can finally be together openly, and even better, collect Roger’s multi-million dollar inheritance. Roger’s hopes are dashed when he learns that his father has instead willed his share to any future offspring, and has only left him a seaside house off the Oregon Coast. Roger decides, “why not move into the house and start having kids?” To which Daphne agrees. It seems that the couple is in for a brand new start, but soon after arriving in their new town, old skeletons begin pouring out their proverbial closets and the couple is faced with ghosts of both their own past as well as from the past of their parents.

Seaside is a relatively slow-paced and quiet movie, but when the score does chime in, ethereal sounds fill the silence and help towards creating the dreary and haunting atmosphere Zalutsky cultivated. It is an interesting story, with the main character, Daphne, a black woman seemingly surrounded by and used by her white counterparts, however, the film is still very often dull and nowhere near being a thriller. There is no intensity, save for perhaps individual acting performances, and there are more than a couple of sex scenes yet the film had little passion. Where I was looking for suspense I was instead met with many scenes of characters looking off into the distance of the sea, which may have been meant to come off as pensive but was not entertaining at all. Was the drab color scheme meant to add to the atmosphere as well? Who can say but Zalutsky — but let’s just give him the benefit of the doubt.

The movie’s positive points are its actors. Zalutsky’s intimate framing held us up close to the emotion and subtle nuances displayed on characters’ faces when not much was being said, which was often — each character had a card hidden behind their back and a smile belied ulterior motives. The cast was comprised of Tony Award nominee Ariana DeBose and Matt Shingledecker as well as Steffanie Leigh as Susanna (who plays an ex-lover to more than one), Sharon Washington (who is a weak but imposing figure as Daphne’s “momma”), and Jana Lee Hamblin (who plays the cool and calculating lawyer/executor of the will).

Seaside opens with a quote from Soren Kierkegaard — “Life can only be understood backwards; but must be lived forwards” — much like this movie can only be understood after all of the cards have been shown and we must watch through this sleepy thriller to get to the meatier parts in the final 30 minutes. I feel like elements were there to allow this movie to really say something, such as rape culture, class inequality, and racism, but these aspects were only glossed over. With that said, Seaside does begin improving as the film ramps up to its end and it is not completely unwatchable, so to catch Sam Zalutsky’s 2018 twisty indie thriller, Seaside, find it on Amazon, YouTube, and iTunes — but I suggest you take a nap well in advance of watching this mellow melodrama.