I had an interesting conversation with a colleague after watching Relay for the first time, last September at TIFF. Given the people involved with the making of it, Relay was one of my most anticipated movies at the festival last year, so it was a bit of a blow when the whole thing turned out to be a letdown. The colleague – who quite liked the film – asked what I didn’t enjoy, and my answer was a simple one: I could predict the big twist reveal long before anyone else in the movie. There was plenty I enjoyed about the film, but the twist is both predictable and predicated on logical gaps in reasoning that run counter to everything the viewer has been told about these characters.
And before I got into all that, my fellow critic asked me a question that made me want to go back and watch the film a second time upon its proper release: “Did you not like the movie because it was a bad movie or did you not like it because you were smarter than it?” At the time, the question intrigued me, but unfortunately after a second viewing, my initial ruling on the field still stands. Relay is a film with a lot of style, interesting ideas, and one major, inexcusable flaw.
Sarah Grant (Lily James) is in a desperate situation involving her former employer. A researcher for a major agricultural conglomerate, Sarah is in possession of information and documents pertaining to a brand new form of GMO, insect resistant wheat that has been shown to cause a significant amount of health problems in testing. The company’s efforts to frighten and rattle Sarah – spearheaded by ruthless fixer, Dawson (Sam Worthington) – has made her rethink being a whistleblower. All she wants now is to give back the evidence in a way that can ensure her safety. Via a lawyer that can’t provide much help, Sarah is referred to a different kind of fixer that she’ll ideally never meet in person. Utilizing a highly confidential “relay” system normally used by the deaf and hearing impaired (where operators are sworn to secrecy), Ash (Riz Ahmed) calls and provides detailed instructions for Sarah on how to proceed, while keeping Dawson and his goons on their toes. Ash, a recovering alcoholic tripping over the twelve steps, has strict rules about never meeting any of his clients in person, but something about this particular case will cause him to step out of his comfortable, anonymous zone.
The script from Justin Piasecki has one heck of a hook, but Relay might be approaching its story from the wrong angle. Upon learning how a “relay” system works, I almost wanted to see a film from the perspective of one of the call centre operators tasked with delivering and handling confidential information. Instead, Relay takes the form of a more standard New York City based espionage drama and paranoia thriller, but the gimmick still works because the cast commits fully and director David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water, Outlaw King, upcoming TIFF title Fuze) brings a lot of visual panache and energy to the proceedings.
The milieu of the main character isn’t one that has been seen on screen before, and thematically, one occupying a moral grey area that adds some depth and consequence to Relay. Ash is nothing more than a middleman whose job is not only to protect their client, but to also ensure that the villains get what they desire. This dichotomy provides Mackenzie with a perfect sense of pacing and stickiness to keep things consistently moving along. While the viewer is impressed by Ash’s skills and Sarah’s willingness to follow through on his suggested course of action, there’s curiously not a lot worth rooting for in Relay. And yet, that aspect in and of itself doesn’t damage the film in the slightest.
The depiction of Ash’s particular set of skills and tradecraft has a high cool factor. The way Mackenzie’s protagonist effortlessly and quietly (his first line of dialogue doesn’t come until almost a third of the way in) outsmarts his client’s aggressors is a great deal of fun. Echoing the antics of the classic television spy The Saint, Mackenzie is able to find new ways for Ahmed to blend into the surroundings without anyone taking notice that he’s there. Ash has the work ethic of an assassin and the lifestyle of a monk, which can be quite compelling when placed in the hands of a captivating, intense actor like Ahmed.
But about an hour into my second viewing of Relay, that goodwill towards all the things I enjoyed about the film began to collapse again. Right around the time a romantic bond starts to develop between Ash and Sarah, things start breaking down and astute viewers should easily be able to clock where all of this is headed. Things move at a good pace, but the interest level plummets. Characters that were once smart and savvy will make bizarrely out of character mistakes, and at a certain point – long before the film gets around to it – the viewer will realize there’s only one single direction Relay could be heading in unless it comes up with something outstanding. It doesn’t. It goes exactly how anyone who’s paying close attention will think. And it’s a real bummer. All the style and great acting in the world can’t cover up this one big scripting flaw.
On a second pass with Relay, I was better able to appreciate the craft and style that went into making it. I already had a fondness for the performances. And I guess to some degree, I was more forgiving of the big reveal because I knew what was in store. It doesn’t make me like the ending any better, but at least the weight of expectation that I had before was gone. But the problem with making a thriller like Relay is that if the twist doesn’t land, the movie doesn’t work. The nuts and bolts logic of Relay’s big reveal are frustrating to parse, and while I won’t spoil it for anyone who just wants to see an otherwise okay thriller, just ask yourself if you think people with this much experience in their field wouldn’t be able to figure out that something was amiss long before they do. While I was able to predict the big reveal of Relay, that’s not why I didn’t like it. I didn’t like Relay because that twist singlehandedly negates all of the hard work, good ideas, and style that came before it.
Relay opens in theatres everywhere on Friday, August 22, 2025.
