Critic Reviews

All three leads are terrific — especially Vikander, whose Japanese is impressive — but they’re working with material that doesn’t measure up to their talents.

Everyone here appears to be revelling in the juicy opportunities Earthquake Bird brings to hit up our memories of everything from Fatal Attraction to Single White Female.

But even if this film of a Susanna Jones novel makes a middling whodunit, it’s still a fine vehicle for Vikander, an actress of quiet reserve and inner fury. She and the exotic setting lift Earthquake Bird, even if it never fully takes flight.

Westmoreland approaches the project every bit as respectful toward Japanese customs as Jones was, although only a percentage of her insights carry over to the film. They’re still there, mind you, but more difficult to detect.

I was less taken with the wait-is-this-really-happening moments that tend to undermine the emotional currency in which the drama is presented to us. Some real tremors, though.

While too muddled and morose to hold together as a psychosexual thriller, Wash Westmoreland’s Earthquake Bird can be compelling for how it both explores and subverts the idea that everyone gets a little bit lost in translation.

This solidly crafted Ridley Scott production is sprinkled with classy ingredients, including Alicia Vikander as headline star. But it is also a fairly flat treatment of over-familiar plot elements, and fatally low on the key psycho-thriller elements of suspense, surprise and dread.

Try as he might, Westmoreland can’t muster the same portraiture skills with a woman of mystery and brokenness that he’s shown with bold, expressive types (“Still Alice,” “Colette”).

For all its consideration, while Earthquake Bird adds up to a “real” movie, it’s too polite to add up to an entirely compelling one.

Netflix's Earthquake Bird is a not particularly engaging thriller featuring an inert performance from Alicia Vikander.