The Line
Directed by Ethan Berger
Written by Ethan Berger & Alex Russek
Starring Alex Wolff, Lewis Pullman, Halle Bailey, Austin Abrams
Runtime: 100 minutes
Opens in select theaters on October 18, expanding October 23

by Rachel Shatto, Staff Writer

Is there something inherently sinister about fraternities? After all, beyond the togas and paddles, frats are as much about networking, amassing privilege, and future influence peddling as they are about keg stands, or so The Line–the debut feature film from Ethan Berger–proposes. Mix that with heavy doses of misogyny, homophobia, and toxic masculinity, and it creates a powder keg that regularly claims young men’s lives in hazing rituals gone wrong. 

Tom (Alex Wolff) is a young, working-class college sophomore who’s just joined the KNA fraternity, something he sees as a rocket ship out of his middle-class existence and into one of wealth and privilege. Everything about him is committed to Greek life, from his singular focus on his frat brothers and his fraternity president, all the way down to his affected Southern accent that demonstrates how eager he is to shed his background and adopt one of gentility. Ironic considering his Greek life consists of heavy drinking, drugs, and trading homophobic barbs with his brothers. 

The Line doesn’t mince words: it sees frat life as a miasma of fragile, toxic masculinity. That’s particularly apparent when one pledge comes in and isn’t groveling and obsequious to Tom’s closest friend, Mitch (Bo Mitchell). Son of a man of great influence (played by a perfectly supercilious John Malkovich) and lacking in seemingly any redeemable characteristic, Mitch is the epitome of what one imagines about the darkest and saddest stereotype of fraternity bros. He’s sloppy, overbearing, unintelligent, and constantly performing masculinity—while also boasting the brittlest of egos, which leads inexorably to tragedy. 

The plot follows a fairly predictable course—after all, the purpose of the film isn’t only to highlight the very real (and very tragic) phenomenon of pledges dying in hazing incidents. It also portrays how there’s little to no justice meted out against those who actively participated in the acts or were simply negligent. That said, what keeps The Line bounding along and adding levels of surprising nuance is Wolff’s performance, which vacillates between Tom’s performative attempts to be one of the brothers and struggling with the undercurrent of his socioeconomic anxieties. Tom craves to be truly “one of them” while full acceptance is just slightly out of reach. This all comes to a head when a hazing ritual goes too far and battle lines are drawn.

The final beats of the film are intentionally deflating. As is all too often the case in life, there’s no justice to be found when class and privilege shield perpetrators from consequence. In that way, The Line  is both frustrating and effective. However, it’s the film's final scene, which serves as a coda between two characters, that is at odds with the stakes of the crime that unfolded, undercutting and decentering it. Berger was committed to telling a story that both speaks to those who participate in Greek life and those who find it problematic. That decision sadly undermines and ultimately softens the impact of the important story he’s trying to tell.