To say that On The Line, the emergency dispatch thriller from filmmaker Oliver Pearn, covers new territory would be a stretch. Predecessors with a generally similar storyline include the Danish award-winning film The Guilty (2018), the 2021 remake of the same name starring Jake Gyllenhaal, The Call (2013) starring Halle Berry, and the 2015 drama Operator (2015) starring Mischa Barton, to name a few. However, it’s worth admiring that On The Line utilizes a minimalist approach to give this micro-indie film an edge over its studio counterparts. The film builds tension with its use of only one location and one performer.
On The Line tells the story of a telephone operator residing in the northern Channel Islands in the UK. It’s the mid-1960s and telephone calls are dependent on operators successfully transferring the lines on their switchboards. For 24-year-old Agnes (Victoria Lucie), her shift at the office starts out like any other. She listens to conversations among friends and loved ones as she connects their calls without a second thought. However, Agnes is pulled back into reality after intercepting a phone call from a woman in distress who is desperate for police intervention. The woman, Martha, is in trouble and cannot share many details about her situation due to her captor being close by, so Agnes is forced to play detective and figure out how to save Martha on her own.
Shot entirely in a single room and with only one actor on screen (although the voices of the other actors are heard through the telephone), On The Line successfully builds authentic tension. The audience is with Agnes for the entirety of the film, hearing events unfold in real-time and anticipating the next move right alongside her. To this end, actor Victoria Lucie doesn’t just carry the film, she is the film.
Using a minimal, no-frills approach, filmmaker Oliver Pearn also plays into the psychology of the situation. Over the course of their scattered calls, Agnes develops a parasocial attachment to Martha and blurs the line between professional integrity and personal curiosity. This simple yet effective internal struggle adds another dimension to the character of Agnes and provides the film with an overall sense of tiptoeing around disaster.
On The Line is a microbudget indie with a bounty of potential. Never reaching above its comfort zone, the film doesn’t intend to reinvent the wheel but rather add a very satisfying option to this crime drama genre.
