If you’re the kind of person who is scared of making phone calls, The Guilty on Netflix is the ultimate horror movie. The entire movie features Jake Gyllenhaal as a 911 operator dealing with some of the most stressful phone calls imaginable, starting with a call from a woman who has been kidnapped.
Directed by Antoine Fuqua, with a screenplay from Nic Pizzolatto, the thriller—which began streaming on Netflix on Friday—is an English-language remake of the critically-acclaimed 2018 Danish film of the same name. Gyllenhaal stars as a police officer named Joe Baylor who’s been put on 911 duty for the time being. The entire film takes place from his point of view, and we never see the face of the kidnapped woman, whose name is Emily (voiced by Riley Keough). But Fuqua keeps the suspense alive with several subplots and twists you might not see coming.
You do learn a lot about what life is like as a 911 operator, leading some viewers to wonder if The Guilty is based on a true story. So is it?
IS THE GUILTY BASED ON A TRUE STORY?
Sort of… but not really. All of the characters in The Guilty are completely fictional. Joe Baylor’s story—a cop who eventually pleads guilty to shooting and killing someone—is entirely made up. (Imagine!)
However, the idea for the original 2018 Danish film of the same name was inspired by a YouTube clip of a real 911 call from a woman who had been kidnapped. In an interview with Variety, writer/director Gustav Möller said the call was 20 minutes long, and that the woman spoke to the 911 operator in code while sitting right next to her kidnapper. “It felt like I was seeing images just listening to sound,” Möller said. “It felt like I had seen this woman; I had an idea of the car she was sitting in and the road they were driving on.”
But while that call may have inspired the concept of the script, everything else about the kidnapped woman named Emily (voiced by Riley Keough) in The Guilty is made up. Thank god for that, because those who watched to the end of the movie know that it comes with a dark, gruesome twist. Luckily, it’s not real. Phew!
This post first appeared on Nypost.com
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