THE G - Mark Reviews Movies

The G, Dark Sky Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 26, 2025

At times, The G has the feeling of an old-fashioned exploitation movie, from the relative novelty of its protagonist, an older woman with a violent past, to the real-world severity of its premise, which has to do—appropriately enough—with the exploitation of the elderly by nefarious, greedy actors. Writer/director Karl R. Hearne easily could have taken the route of the cheap thrills of that genre, but instead, this film takes its characters, its scenario, and the cruelty of the fraudulent practice that drives the plot with relative seriousness. That approach turns out to be a pleasant, effective surprise.

There are still some thrills and humor here, to be sure, mainly on account of Hearne's protagonist. She's 76-year-old Ann (Dale Dickey), called—with affection and a bit of intimidation—"the G" by her granddaughter. So many phrases could describe Ann. She doesn't take guff from anyone. She doesn't suffer fools. She's as tough as nails, and the woman could probably stop people dead in their tracks with a single, menacing stare.

There was a time, we soon learn, when Ann lived quite the different life than the one she has now. That amounts to plenty of routine doctor's appointments, to keep track of any health concerns or ailments that could come with age and her borderline-chain-smoking habit. At home in a comfortable apartment, Ann is the primary caretaker for her husband Chip (Greg Ellwand), who is in a wheelchair, requires oxygen, and needs help with just about any and every regular activity. She's not the best caretaker, which is a fact that she would probably be the first to admit, but Ann mostly does what's necessary without much complaint, because the couple has basically become outcasts to both of their families.

The exception is their granddaughter Emma (Romane Denis), who spends a good amount of time with the G—less than she used to after Ann gave up a knitting circle she and Emma participated in to be with her husband more. Emma gets and respects her grandmother, because she is so tough and the granddaughter wishes she could be like that to even a little extent.

Right away, Hearne establishes these characters and their dynamics, which also include that Emma's stepfather (played by Daniel Brochu), Chip's son, resents Ann, his stepmother, for breaking up his own family. The work of doing so is simple, but it goes a long way here, especially because Dickey inhabits this character with such confidence that we immediately have a sense of who Ann is and what she might be capable of if someone were to cross her.

Obviously, someone does, in quite an awful way—that's only more frightening because it is an actual practice perpetrated by terrible people. Basically, Ann and Chip, without their participation or even knowledge, are deemed physically incapable of caring for themselves and each other by a court.

No family members are involved in this, because Rivera (Bruce Ramsay), a man with ties to a local politician with national ambitions, got himself appointed the couple's legal guardian, paid a doctor to write up a phony report, and convinced a judge to make that ruling. Rivera and his thug (played by Christian Jadah) force the two out of their home and put them in a care facility, where they're locked up with no way to contact the outside world for at least a month.

Of course, this story becomes a revenge thriller, because Rivera and his men take everything from Ann, who is most certainly not the kind of person with whom to mess. She's more than just a hardened woman with an angry, impatient attitude. She has done things and knows people who can do those things or worse.

The expectation, then, is that a plan for vengeance will take over the proceedings, but Hearne subverts that idea. These characters, after all, deserve a bit more, because they are so inherently fascinating and are caught up in such a byzantine maze of court orders, a criminal enterprise that exploits and abuses the elderly for financial gain, and, as it becomes clear that some of Rivera's crew are capable of killing, very real threats. The outrage of this premise is palpable, but Hearne also imbues this tale with an air of regret and melancholy. We get the sense that the filmmaker doesn't want to exploit these characters or the reality of this situation for his own ends.

That approach leads to scenes in which Dickey allows Ann to have far more depth than we might anticipate, a surprisingly tender connection that develops between the cynical Ann and a timid neighbor at the facility named Joseph (Roc Lafortune), and a subplot in which Emma, with the help of a landscaping contractor named Matt (Joey Scarpellino), tries to embody her grandmother's assertive nature to rescue her. Everything here is more subdued than is suggested by Ann's promise of what she's going to do to these guys (It's quite the line of character-defining dialogue), so when violence comes by way of the son (played by Jonathan Koensgen) of Ann's old associate and Rivera's goons, it's genuinely shocking.

The film, then, functions quite well as a revenge thriller, because there is a righteousness here in fighting against such a despicable scheme. The G, though, is a bit more than that, because it's not operating on a base or exploitative level. The film is smarter and, as odd as it may sound for this kind of story, more compassionate than that.

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