The intensity of the one-man, one-room thriller The Guilty is mixed with the interdimensional communication of Frequency and an unflinching performance by Josh Stewart to give us Lifeline. This 2025 directorial feature debut by Feras Alfuqaha uses mystery thriller and sci-fi elements as a window to a tense psychological drama where Stewart’s Steven confronts his repressed childhood trauma. Falling around the 80-minute mark, Alfuqaha handles the concise, fast-paced storytelling quite well with a particularly stylish direction. This is how he manages to veer away from being just a rehashing of The Guilty and Frequency — Lifeline truly does stand on its own merits for the majority of its runtime, right until the ending that may leave a bittersweet note in your mouth.
What Is ‘Lifeline’ About?

Steven is a psychologist who volunteers twice a year at a suicide hotline call center called Lifeline, where callers are completely anonymous. On New Year’s Eve, his wife (Charlene Amoia) and son (August Maturo) go out to their respective parties while Steven braces himself for a night on the phone, where he will be by himself for most of the night. As the film unfolds, we witness Steven taking a couple of calls from a mysterious voice who keeps hanging up, a prank caller, and a case of domestic abuse. During this time, strange earthquakes that viciously rattle his desk but affect no one else keep happening, setting Steven’s nerves on edge even more than they already were.
However, things really take a turn when he starts speaking to a caller with the same name and personal history. Though he initially believes it is a prank call from his son, he is slowly pulled into the mystery of how he could possibly be talking to this potential younger version of himself, voiced by Judah Lewis. The young Steven is in a motel room with a gun and is planning to shoot himself at midnight. Under the pressure of this strict time limit, the older Steven struggles to connect with him, all while being barraged by his memories of a traumatic childhood.
Josh Stewart Makes Us Invest in an Otherwise Familiar Narrative

Image via Dark Sky Films

It is impossible not to immediately recognize how engaging Stewart is in Lifeline, with the camera often right up in his face where we can almost study his pores and tense frown lines. He is most famously known for his role in Criminal Minds as the level-headed and reliable Will, but has also dipped his toes into horror with his grueling performance in The Collector franchise: Steven feels like a mix of these. Stewart has always mastered the exhausted, pensive, and collected demeanor, and here, it is also mixed with the systemic descent into confusion and panic. He is what we would expect from a psychologist who is trying to operate under the burden of so many confessions, while also relaying the effect of reliving his repressed memories again.
While Stewart occupies our eyes with a purely reactive performance, Lewis arguably has the tougher role of encapsulating the trauma only through his voice. His brief appearances in Steven’s flashbacks don’t give him enough time to do this, but his voice acting, from mimicking an immature version of Steven’s cadence to creating an immediacy to the events, effectively emphasizes this self-reflective by-play. Together, Stewart and Lewis craft a culminating emotional intensity that makes the somewhat predictable backstory still as visceral as ever. Scenes of Stewart with P. L. Brown as a security guard or Luke Benward as Steven’s brother also add to this mind-bending, sci-fi thriller atmosphere, which in turn feeds into the psychological descent of it all.
Alfuqaha’s direction makes sure our attention is always riveted on Stewart, with the actor engulfing most of the screen time in the cold, dark lighting of the office. A dramatic score by Omar Habbak that intensifies with each close-up forms a gust of frantic energy that comes to an eerie standstill every time a flashback cuts onto the screen, filmed in a 4:3 aspect ratio, with a warm retro filter and a pulse of anxiety. You would think that the switches between timelines would be disruptive to the momentum of suspense in the present one, but they are never a beat too long or too sudden, falling into an easy rhythm with the film.
‘Lifeline’ Ends on a Thought-Provoking But Frustrating Note

Image via Dark Sky Films

In the final act of Lifeline, it is the camerawork that marries the two genres of the film together, where tilting, swaying and panning create the reality-bending experience of a mystery and raw emotions. But this is probably also where Lifeline’s fatal flaw comes in. The closing sequence is carried out in a delicate, twisting, and captivating oner, where we can pick out little clues and tie the entire film together in a satisfying bow. It feels atmospheric and deeply thought-provoking until you indulge in those thoughts and a sense of frustration starts to grow. Unfortunately, by applying such a concrete and rational solution to the events of the film, the result borders on cliché and feels a bit like a betrayal.
What makes Lifeline so compelling is the unknowable quality of the sci-fi mystery (the earthquakes, the anagrams, the potential outcomes of parallel universes) which reflects Steven’s trauma. While ambiguous endings are often seen as a cop-out, Lifeline’s tangible one simply undermines the film’s strengths and intrigue. Barring those last two minutes, the movie was honed to near-perfection, breathing new life into tried concepts with Stewart showing off his acting chops right at the center of it all.
Lifeline is now playing in theaters and is available on VOD services.

Lifeline

‘Lifeline’ is a fresh take on concepts we have seen before by bombarding us with emotional intensity and dazzling visuals.

Release Date

February 21, 2025

Runtime

80 Minutes

Pros & Cons

‘Lifeline’ has an intriguing premise that effortlessly builds suspense.
Josh Stewart demands our attention with his nuanced, all-consuming performance.
The film beautifully balances mind-bending sci-fi elements and a raw psychological drama.

‘Lifeline’s ending leaves a sour taste in your mouth.