Gray Matter is a new (HBO) Max film that is the result of the latest season of Project Greenlight. It’s an interesting, low budget idea that may or may not have been able to stand on its own. It doesn’t make a flag waving success for the tv show though.

The film is about a teenage girl and her parent who are on the run from a shadow organization due to their psychic powers. Before you can “Oh hi Firestarter”, the girl winds up in the hands of someone who seems nice but, since we’ve seen these movies before, is probably nefarious.

I think this movie is trying… it’s putting in the effort with a decent (but wildly small) cast and good enough camera work. It’s telling a story in a very familiar YA genre… which isn’t a crime. But the movie is too low ambition for its own good… I’ve seen better indie films with bigger ideas and more radical filmmaking at (or below) this film’s budget.

It has almost no world building so we have no real grasp on the stakes of the film. We get little understanding if the psychic abilities are super secret or well known to the public. Partly because we barely ever see the world… just a series of isolated rooms with a tiny cast of characters.

Nothing wrong with a bottle movie as long as what they fill that bottle with is interesting and compelling. Which this movie struggles to be. I think it has some decent ideas and I think the lead actress is pretty solid… she’s just not given much to work with.

Gray Matter is a disappointingly unambitious movie that’s well acted and earnest… but it ultimately just doesn’t do enough to be interesting.

Score: 74