Sniping for Love

On Derrickson and Dean's 'The Gorge'

The British Army In North-West Europe, 1945, Photograph, Getty Images

With Oscar season here, we’re staying in a movie mood. Today, Petra Khashoggi, a member of The Metropolitan Review editorial board, shares her thoughts on The Gorge, a new genre-bender from Apple TV+ that warmed her heart. If you finding yourself reading TMR all the time — if you’re at least intrigued, maybe in love, or even filled with a bit of bile — consider pledging $50 a year or $5 a month so we can make this the best literary publication in America. We’re getting there, thanks to you. (As always, don’t forget to visit our nifty website and start getting excited for our first print issue!)

-The Editors

The Gorge, an Apple Original, is exactly that—original—not a sequel, a remake, or based on a novel. Without fanfare or announcement, Apple TV+ (the streamer arm of the tech titan has only been around five years) released a fresh, modern love story on Valentine’s Day 2025.

Directed by Scott Derrickson from a spec script written by Zach Dean, the megacorp’s slick new flick mashes multiple genres to great effect: romance, thriller, action, adventure, sci-fi and horror. Derrickson took risks on the ambitious film, and they paid off. I can’t predict whether it will stand the test of time, but despite mixed reviews, I thought The Gorge was a good movie. I will even go as far to say it was a very good movie.

What makes a movie good? Opinions may differ, but here’s mine: one that holds my attention so that I can escape real life for a couple of hours, give or take, and allow myself to be transported to another world via an engaging plot, well-developed characters, and themes that resonate. Other elements that help are the appeal and skill of the actors, good direction, storytelling that has a clear narrative arc, sharp dialogue, high-quality visuals, and a great score.

In summary: entertain me, inform me, don’t bore me, and above all, make me feel something.

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The premise of The Gorge is that two emotionally wounded special forces operatives from different parts of the world, played by Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy, are hired on contract for their exceptional sniper skills and lack of attachments to romantic partners, friends, or family. Levi and Drasa, loners with traumatic backstories, are appointed to an undisclosed location for one full year, stationed in two high rise watchtowers across from each other, a classified mysterious abyss clouded with fog between them known as “the gorge.”

Some critics have argued the setup is too slow and that the film should have started with action instead of clunky exposition. Watching Drasa, a lithe Lithuanian lady, shoot an oleaginous Russian oligarch at long range as he steps off his private jet was actionable enough for me, and I enjoyed the ensuing scene with her father. The father-daughter relationship is a particular familial tie that I find endlessly fascinating.

Meanwhile, the haunted and brooding Levi reports to his chilly superior, the head of a shady organization played by Sigourney Weaver. As she decides whether to recruit Levi, an American former marine, we learn what a sad life he leads: unlucky in love and methodically drinking himself to sleep every night, just enough to help him cope with the recurring PTSD terrors.

After being transported to an unknown country in military aircraft, Levi arrives at the gorge and is shown around by his predecessor. The assignment is explained: guard the gorge from itself, but never go down there. Use any means necessary to annihilate the dark forces below, ominous creatures known as “Hollow Men.” This was the scene that hooked me: Levi reveals himself as someone of depth and sensitivity: he knows about Hollow Men because he reads T.S. Eliot.

After settling into the watchtower, Levi discovers handwritten quotes written on the wall behind a bookshelf. Every predecessor before him has left their mark, signing and dating their own favorite quote plucked from the books they perused during their year in isolation. Levi’s last predecessor, whose fate is a shocking early plot twist, leaves the words of Jean-Paul Sartre: “If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.”

Over in the opposite watchtower, Drasa is a carefree, rebellious spirit who chases moments of light and joy to counter her overwhelming sadness. Levi likes to read and write, Drasa likes to dance and sing. Opposites attract, and it’s easy to see why Levi, the noble conformist, would find wild bird Drasa intriguing.

The courtship phase between them is wholly unique and endearing. Even though they are strictly forbidden from having any contact with each other (or the outside world), the feisty Drasa initiates communication with a gunshot to summon Levi’s attention, then writes the first of a series of flirty notes between them that they read through binoculars. Using stunning effects, the first action scene shows us what horrors lurk beneath the gorge. Gruesome zombies appear only to be rapidly decimated with all the firearms Levi and Drasa have at their disposal.

The pair continue to get to know each other from a distance by playing drums with kitchen utensils — a clever allusion to Miles Teller’s role in Whiplash — and playing chess — a nod to Anya Taylor-Joy’s starring role in The Queen’s Gambit.

Their unconventional love story develops when Valentine’s Day rolls around, six months into their mission at the gorge. Drasa knows her father is going to commit suicide that day (we learn about this early in the film) and when Levi sees her tears through the binoculars, he recalls a T.S. Eliot quote written on the wall behind the bookshelf by the first predecessor: “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

Eliot’s words enable Levi to zipline his way over the murky vastness of the gorge and into the arms of Drasa, his damsel in distress, making it just in time for dinner, dancing, and late night romancing.

The film is not without flaws — there is some gratingly cheesy dialogue and a few preposterous plot twists — but I was charmed by the characters and invested enough in the story to suspend my disbelief. I mean, in what world would two highly-skilled operatives be young, attractive, single, and hot for each other? Fantasy Land. Exactly the place where good movies are supposed to take you.

Levi and Drasa each carry an albatross of shame and pain from their pasts, but they bear these psychological scars with different approaches to the present: she’s a fun-loving rule breaker, he’s a stoic truth seeker.

Derrickson nailed the casting; the two leads are inherently likeable, and as unlikely as their love story might be, they make it work with their effervescent chemistry. Taylor-Joy reminds me of a cross between Uma Thurman in her Kill Bill era and Milla Jovovich circa Resident Evil. Teller pulls off the troubled but earnest characters of a young Edward Norton, and Sigourney Weaver is stellar as the sinister spook.

Personally, I have no interest in zombie movies, and if The Gorge had been described as such, I doubt I would have watched it in the first place. The love story made the monster scenes tolerable. When Levi and Drasa do descend into hell, the world of the gorge is reminiscent of Eliot’s The Waste Land. A pleasant surprise was the revelation of what the gorge actually is. Rather than being a nonsensical underworld of frightening monsters and creepy creatures, the backstory of how it became that way is not only believable but downright terrifying. It involves — spoiler alert — World War II.

Many film scores tend to manipulate how we are supposed to feel, but the soundtrack of this one, composed by the duo of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, was effective at making me feel emotions without distraction. There is a brilliant remix of All Along the Watchtower, a song that has been featured in countless movies.

The ending speeds along and ties everything up nicely, with a final scene that warmed me on the inside and left me beaming. In terms of what I consider a good movie, The Gorge more than delivers. It is refreshing to see a new film that is genuinely enjoyable and entirely original. I heartily recommend and hastily won’t forget The Gorge. I finished it feeling as satisfied as Levi does upon finishing a plate of Drasa’s homemade rabbit pie. It also made me want to go and gorge myself on the works of T.S. Eliot.

Petra Khashoggi is a British-American writer based in NYC. She is a former fashion model, art dealer, award-winning filmmaker, and freelance journalist with bylines in The Times, Daily Mail, Vogue, Elle, and Perspective. She writes the Substack

Kittenesque

and is a member of The Metropolitan Review editorial board.