Alone is the nasty little thriller you need to watch on Netflix

polygon.com:

The internet is often accused of annihilating the personhood of other people, encouraging everyone on it to regard only themselves as whole, complex individuals worthy of empathy, and everyone else as pond scum. This is a dire read, but not an inaccurate one. Driving, however, should get some credit for doing the same first.

Behind the wheel, everyone else is a potential aggravation, a metal jellybean waiting to piss you off rather than a person. The anonymity of the road affords us the space to be petty tyrants; it also puts us at risk. Someone else can decide to reflect your perceived tyranny back at you. Annoyance can escalate to conflict. A fellow traveler can become something more sinister.

It’s important that Alone begins on the road. The minimalist 2020 thriller, now streaming on Netflix, leans into the archetypal sorting the brain does behind the wheel, immediately locking the viewer in on a primal level with its inciting incident. A woman is driving on a long trip through remote roads, hauling a trailer behind her sensible car loaded with all her possessions for a move. She tries to drive around a green SUV. The SUV accelerates, refusing to let her pass, and nearly forcing her into an oncoming truck. It’s frightening, and infuriating, but then she shakes it off… until she keeps seeing that same green SUV.

Directed by John Hyams (the low-budget auteur behind Netflix’s best zombie show), Alone is a wickedly taut two-hander, with its lead, Jessica (Jules Willcox) slowly realizing with horror that Sam (Marc Menchaca) is not merely running into her out of coincidence. Mattias Olsson’s script doesn’t give much in the way of backstory on either character, but it hardly matters. Willcox and Menchaca are both adept performers capable of gripping you with their gaze alone — giving depth to Jessica’s growing desperation and Sam’s initially friendly menace.

As their conflict escalates, Alone — through spare dialogue and careful direction — becomes almost fable-like,