Ultimately, Cody will either live or die, and that places tight limits on the narrative. It's easy to understand why the story developed in this way. Outside, Burnette is invested in painting a portrait of the community and exploring some of the other types of pressure that shape rural life. Despite his slender years, DiFalco is an experienced actor and it would have been nice to see him given the chance to do more with this material. Inside the silo, with Cody unable to follow what the rescuers are up to and desperately trying to communicate the urgency of his situation, the dramatic potential is high. He's trying to do two things at once and the film is weaker as a result. It's a simple story - arguably not simple enough, as writer/director Marshall Burnette adds in soap opera elements which distract from the central crisis and deplete the tension. We wait with the stricken workers and other members of their close-knit community as the emergency services are summoned and gradually concoct a plan to try and get him out. Unlike quicksand, however, the corn also has considerable weight. Cody, trying to help a fellow worker, becomes trapped as though it is quicksand and only escapes immediate drowning because he listens when another colleague yells at him to keep still. The young man in question is Cody (Jack DiFalco), who is breaking up lumps of compressed corn to let it flow smoothly when an elderly neighbour, suffering from dementia and going through the motions of his past life without understanding, opens the valve that lets fresh corn flood down into the silo. This particular slice of rural life focuses on what happens when a teenager becomes trapped inside just such a structure.

Today, much of the damage is done by machinery and agricultural chemicals, but older technologies like silo storage for grain also carry a cost. Farming is an inherently risky profession. City-dwellers tend to think of the countryside as a peaceful, slow-paced, easy-going place where there is - at least comparatively - very little in the way of danger.

Silo the film