Actor Siobhan Fallon Hogan Releases “Shelter in Solitude” Her Latest Feature As Producer and Writer

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Sunday, 22 October 2023 03:09

Written by Orrin Konheim

With an illustrious acting career that includes roles in Men in Black, Seinfeld, and Fever Pitch, Siobhan Fallon Hogan has taken a turn towards independent filmmaking. Having made its rounds in the film festival circuit, Shelter in Solitude, her sophomore effort, is a more leisurely-paced character piece than Rushed, her producing/writing debut, which came out in 2021.

The film centers on a down-on-her luck bar owner, Val (Fallon Hogan), bonding with a death row inmate (Peter Macon, The Orville) in his last week of life. Fallon Hogan has written for herself a juicy role to dig her teeth into. Few films have opted to be set during the pandemic even though the event had such a cataclysmic societal effect. In Shelter in Solitude, the pandemic is sewn into the plot’s infrastructure. The characters exist in a vague sector of the Rust Belt whose decline is highlighted and exacerbated by the shutdown. Val is hit with debts and loneliness as a bar owner who has to close her business due to Covid-19. She’s also haunted by her failed career as a country singer. Though set in the South, the film was shot in Fallon-Hogan’s hometown of Syracuse. A testament to her location scouting, Fallon shot the film in Syracuse’s defunct Main Street Prison, a setting that seems authentically depressing. The film is, in fact, inspired by the prison in Fallon-Hogan’s hometown of Cazenovia (a Syracuse suburb). Her father was an attorney who would often talk about his cases during dinner and the young actor’s fascination was sparked when her father discussed a prison guard. She also had cousins who lived in a prison nearby — the Jamesville Correctional Facility — which was used for exterior shots.

Just as the real Fallon Hogan has a family connection to the lives of prisoners, Val’s brother Dwayne (Robert Patrick) is a stoic prison warden. The two exhibit a comfortable relationship despite having clashing personalities which spices up some of the film’s slower-moving moments. When the prison guard catches Covid, Val takes over the management of death row and its sole prisoner, Jackson (Macon). This is where the film displays its most awkward moments. Val loses her jaded edge and suddenly morphs into a pollyanna chatterbox as if she’s being neutralized by a high school crush. Fallon Hogan is doing strong enough character work here, that the scenes are strong enough to drive through any inconsistencies. Over the last week of Jackson’s life, the two develop a rapport that drives the second half of the film.

The comic instincts of Fallon Hogan also serve her well in some of the film’s more light-hearted moments. The film is largely held together by the strong character work that Fallon Hogan (it helps that she’s the screenwriter as well) put in creating Val in all her contradictions. She’s defiant against anyone who tries to restrict her, yet unable to be completely self-reliant. It’s the quintessential tale of the perpetual screw-up but the story gives her a little more leeway to have a chance at redemption.

A graduate of Catholic University, Fallon Hogan has navigated a career based on her Christian values. In both Saturday Night Live and her films, she has turned down movie roles that conflicted with her values. As such, religious themes make her way into her work. Like the actress, her character here is unapologetically Christian even if she’s not a paragon of Christian virtues at all times.

Compared to Fallon Hogan’s debut, this film doesn’t have the tension or as much of an edge when it comes to saying something about society. However, the sense of place and character work make this film worth a watch as well.

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