Bring Her Back

yeah so: OK I did not know this was a film about grieving the loss of a child! I need to figure out how to screen for that. (Same thing happened with Hamnet; you think you're watching yet another Shakespeare adaptation and bam outta nowhere you're absolutely bawling in a theater, clutching hands with a nameless older woman sitting next to you, who is also sobbing into her popcorn.)

basically: A teen step-sibling duo of a he tryin' brother and blind younger sister tragically find themselves up for adoption after a quite harrowing scene wherein they discover their father's body in the shower and the brother, shocked into inaction, can't answer his sister's screaming pleas and she's left to divine the gruesome truth by touching their father's inert body. Enter: The Mom from Paddington, who wants to adopt the sister (and only agrees to adopt the brother as well at the siblings' insistence they not be separated) and seemingly provides a loving home and chance at a stable life... except who the hell is this weird mute kid she has in her house? Also, something is definitely "off" about her? Oh, and the opening scene of the movie is a vcr recording of a dark occultist ritual slash snuff film, so, yeah you know shit's about to go down.

Much has been made about the decade-long trend of popular horror based in traumatic experiences and the unbinding of reality they create, but this one had moments that truly seemed to understand the traumas it was built off-- the unmooring anxiety of being orphaned young, the foundation-wrecking vacancy of losing a child you were meant to protect, the gutting pain of being left behind after a loved one leaves... this film shocked and horrified me but yeah I did cry. I never want to watch it again and yet I know I absolutely will.

stray bottom-of-the-purse thoughts: A24 truly recognizes the horror of a naked Boomer body; the teens who investigate the uncool blind girl's socials and derisively conclude "she's like a millenial" AAHHHH; the blind teen girl is a great horror heroine-- she needs to feel her way through one situation to the next (limiting the camera) and relies on potentially untruthful narrators to tell her what she can't touch; my sweet sweet girlfriend came into the room while I was watching this and excitedly proclaimed "That's the mom from Paddington!" and promptly ran from the room after two minutes; the Mom from Paddington fucking killed it, I hope she was recognized if not nominated for her work in this one; NO ONE KNOWS WHAT TO DO WITH GRIEF