Resurrection (Andrew Semans, 2022)

[DarkImbecile]

The best thing I've seen so far seven films into Sundance 2022 is Andrew Semans' Resurrection, an extremely dark psychological thriller that combines a fantastic performance by one of the very best actresses working today with a script that establishes a disturbing premise and has the spine to follow it through all the way.

Rebecca Hall's lead performance is as bracing, committed, and raw as you might have come to expect if you've followed her career of late, and her willingness to get elbow-deep in all the darkest parts of a very dark script puts her in position on my personal Best Actress list that will be hard to dislodge in the remaining eleven months of the year. The intense physicality and willingness to plumb some distressing psychological depths that Hall has brought to several roles over the last decade make her fairly unique among her peers, and the sense of her being on the edge of dangerous territory makes it impossible to look away from her when she's given material this good. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but between this and her similarly intense performance in The Night House, she seems to be betraying an interest in examining

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the darkest sides of extreme sadomasochism and body horror; it'd be fascinating to see her collaborate with someone like Cronenberg if he continues to work after Crimes of the Future.

This is Semans' second feature as a writer-director (and the first I've seen), and the highest praise I can think of is that if you replaced his name in the credits with Paul Schrader's, I'd totally have bought it and have been impressed that late-period Schrader was able to so convincingly investigate a female, maternal perspective. I don't want to say anything about the plot, but Semans has taken a basic concept that could have felt very tired even with actors as good as Hall and Tim Roth and invested it with enough verve and perversity to make it feel fresh even before one of the more memorable climactic scenes in recent years. Highly recommended!

[therewillbeblus]

The best thing I've seen so far seven films into Sundance 2022 is Andrew Semans' Resurrection, an extremely dark psychological thriller that combines a fantastic performance by one of the very best actresses working today with a script that establishes a disturbing premise and has the spine to follow it through all the way.

Rebecca Hall's lead performance is as bracing, committed, and raw as you might have come to expect if you've followed her career of late, and her willingness to get elbow-deep in all the darkest parts of a very dark script puts her in position on my personal Best Actress list that will be hard to dislodge in the remaining eleven months of the year. The intense physicality and willingness to plumb some distressing psychological depths that Hall has brought to several roles over the last decade make her fairly unique among her peers, and the sense of her being on the edge of dangerous territory makes it impossible to look away from her when she's given material this good. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but between this and her similarly intense performance in The Night House, she seems to be betraying an interest in examining

SpoilerShow

the darkest sides of extreme sadomasochism and body horror; it'd be fascinating to see her collaborate with someone like Cronenberg if he continues to work after Crimes of the Future.

This is Semans' second feature as a writer-director (and the first I've seen), and the highest praise I can think of is that if you replaced his name in the credits with Paul Schrader's, I'd totally have bought it and have been impressed that late-period Schrader was able to so convincingly investigate a female, maternal perspective. I don't want to say anything about the plot, but Semans has taken a basic concept that could have felt very tired even with actors as good as Hall and Tim Roth and invested it with enough verve and perversity to make it feel fresh even before one of the more memorable climactic scenes in recent years. Highly recommended!

I liked this, though more for its abstract insinuations than the economically-crafted thriller it is on the surface. There are moments in the script that are less egregious than Hall's previous breakout-perf horror flick The Night House, but still some contrived situations, expected character developments, and overwritten dialog. Aside from a few minor nitpicks, Hall really does throw herself into the part, but it's Tim Roth who gives what I think may be a career-best performance, playing his role with an erratic mix of human predictability and alien unpredictability that services his character, and Hall's association with his character, perfectly- which leads me into spoiler land, as the most admirable aspect of the film is its ambiguities..

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While we are absolutely meant to take the events -save for that brightly-lit final scene- at face value, as actually occurring (not only would it be cheap not to, but Roth's presence in Hall's office in the last act, seen through the point-of-view of the office mates, is deliberate in disallowing us to gaslight her- she's had enough of that!), there is a certain point in the film where it becomes so clearly allegorical, such a reading is impossible to ignore - though to what precisely is the respectable enigma at the core of the dread.

The first scene of the film has Hall advise a young and naive intern to not only identify the emotional abuse of her partner, but to leave him. Roth's hold over Hall, and her experience recounted from her own youth, as well as her behavior falling under his spell as he returns, cries out as a commentary on older men preying on younger women as well as the powerlessness the victim has over the narrative that's been conditioned into them by this manipulative culprit. She's unable to take her own advice in practice despite possessing the knowledge of the harm. The emotions are too strong- and the film is mature in demonstrating how logic will never outshine our emotional parts' screams.

However... this film goes much further than that. Roth possesses alien qualities, has engaged in grandiose discourse discussing his ability to talk to God, and demands to hold Godlike powers over Hall. Is he God? Is he her God, a presence so formidable and unstoppable that he might as well be? The film seems to posit two opposing lines of thinking here, but that ultimately forge a grey portrait: There is a perverse possibility that Roth is right when he says she has a spiritual hole within her, that only he's been able to fill it, that Abbie is a "substitute" for Ben, etc. The events we've witnessed in the film do support this to some degree, and a twisted rhetorical question to ask is: What do you do if even your God abuses you? He may be representative of the forces that rule our lives, hold us hostage against choosing self-fulfillment and thwart our agency, but He may also complete us?

There is a Catholic reading here perhaps, though anything specific is too much of a stretch, because the key piece to this option is its mirror image: That even if Roth is "right," he may only be correct because he's brainwashed her to the point of having irreparably formed her identity and sense of meaning. It's a deeply tragic revelation, that anyone- a human or a God or both if they serve the same function of a Higher Power to you- who oppresses you but also acts as your lifeline to spiritual purpose and love, must both die and be kept alive in order for you to be stable. These are two extreme outcomes that cannot both happen, as well as two rigid options with no space for compromise in between- necessitating a high-stress life, which is also appropriately allegorical to the trauma survivor, who is always keyed up with hypervigilence.

So what if Hall is able to have her cake and eat it too- kill the devil and save the spiritual life force of God within him? As we see in the final scene, which just has to be a dream, Hall isn't even able to remain content there. That's the most unsettling part of the film- that she's been so damaged by this man that she does need him in her life, even if just worrying about him from afar (as through the elisions we've gathered evidence that Hall has been looking over her shoulder forever and branded these fears into the mind of her daughter through regular anxious speak). Or is the baby in his stomach a symbol of her deepest darkest shame, that an abuser latches onto and keeps within him, tormenting her by merely existing- and yet without him there, does that shame have no tangible host to latch onto and thus become unmanageable in its pervasively nebulous suffocation?

This kind of analysis is only an emblem of the smartest aspect of the film- its entire central conceit, that only becomes apparent in hindsight. The filmmaker is taking the domestic abuse dynamic into an unbelievably fantastical metaphor, in order to expose how staying with an abuser for [enter rationalized reason based on fear, doubt, insecurity, coercive influence] is ludicrous, but it's also validated unconditionally through the film grammar and tonal honesty. It's such a challenging risk to pull off without resorting to campy irreverence, but Semans' does it- to the point where it was difficult for me to wrap my mind around that unveiling. Is the feeling of staying in an emotionally abusive relationship a bit like the person you're staying with having a newborn baby of yours kept alive in his belly? I dunno, but that's both insane and understandable at the same time.. yeah, this film is some kind of genius.

[DarkImbecile]

First trailer

[DarkImbecile]

[DarkImbecile]

Good interview with Hall (that gives very little away) as the film begins its theatrical run; excited to see this one again soon

[The Curious Sofa]

After The Nigh House, this is the second horror film in a couple of years, where the film itself falls short of Rebecca Hall's committed performance. Once her past trauma is revealed in that long monologue of her's 45 minutes in, the film has nowhere left to go. It just plods on, to by the end visualise what we've been told in that monologue and on the way it becomes very repetitive. Scenes of Hall's character clashing with her daughter and lover, who worry about her as she acts increasingly unhinged, alternate with her encounters with Roth (also very good in a quietly menacing performance) which escalate a little every time, only to resolve itself in the most literal way. By the end I lost interest as to whether this is all in Hall's mind or an allegorical/surreal conceit,

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an ambiguous ending which plays it both ways was always guaranteed if you seen any horror film turning on the main protagonists disturbed mental state.

Thematically and structurally this is pretty similar to Alex Garland's Men, which got a lot of flack for being too on the nose but which for all its flaws, I found to be the more imaginative and interesting film. At least it gave us a rebirthing body horror finale which was genuinely bizarre and visually imaginative.

[therewillbeblus]

Although it's clearly designed as another thriller vehicle for Hall, I still think that this is Roth's movie. The narrative is so absurd that in order to work with the deeply sincere themes and tone being pitched, the entire film relies on either an absence of Roth's character, or for his character to sell this bizarre villain with terrifying conviction. The team opted for the tougher option and Roth delivered. Though the script itself deserves some credit for giving him those lines to try to pull off, he could've read them less eclectically. And yet it's in that eclecticism that his humanity shines through, as well as his unpredictability and menace hidden underneath, which is so disturbing on so many levels I can't even count.

[The Curious Sofa]

I'd agree that it's Roth's performance which is the more interesting and unexpected one. It's his casual line readings, gaslighting Hall's character, while occasionally flashing a truly unsettling grin, more than anything in the script as far as I'm concerned. He has too little screen time to truly call it his film though, it's Hall who is in nearly every frame. She is good in a way which would be acting awards bait, were this a more high profile movie.

The film is confidently directed and a Jim Williams score is always a great asset, but Resurrection relies way too much on its goofy central conceit which I didn't find nearly as shocking, intriguing or outrageous as the film wanted me too. Semans just bangs away at one note far too long for my taste.

[therewillbeblus]

See, I think Roth permeates the film with horror even when he’s not on screen, to the point where I’d call it his film- in a similar way to how a Polanski horror movie about whatever threat is effective in thanks to Polanski’s craft of the thriller more than any central perf. Here that craft is replaced by an actor and it’s rare to see the actor forge the suspense rather than merely complement it. It’s the anticipation of him that hangs over the film until he arrives (and it’s no coincidence that I found the lead-up to his arrival to be empty of suspense and inconsistently engaging) and then once he’s here, the turmoil feels earned whether we’re with him or just Hall thinking about him- since we’re doing the same and can now join that surrogate experience! I don’t mean to negate the value of her performance but without Roth playing this part the way he does, it falls down like a house of cards. Instead he looms like an omniscient spirit in human form and it’s a tremendous feat to pull that off, with very little help in the script or narrative pitch to aid him. This is exactly what deserves a best supporting actor nom

[Mr Sausage]

Aside from Gaslight, I've never liked movies revolving around people being gaslit, and I accidentally watched too many of those over the last few days. So I had a tough time watching Resurrection, needing numerous breaks to get some relief. So when I say the movie is terrific, you'll know I'm not saying so lightly. It was a riveting, distressing evocation of the interior world of fear, anxiety, and the long-term effects of trauma.

Movies like this and The Night House are indebted to Ari Aster. The trouble with The Night House was that it was inspired by Aster without learning from him, leaving us with a horror film that had infused its horror with a precisely observed drama centred on heavy subject matter, but didn't know that it also had to use its horror elements to reinforce and amplify the drama rather than the other way around. So the movie devolved into horror instead of building to it. Resurrection avoids that mistake. Aster uses horror as figurative structures to explore emotional states and relationship dynamics. His films are allegories. Resurrection never commits to allegory, but it does approach horror as a form of rhetoric, creating a smaller metaphor on which to anchor its drama (tho' a metaphor it's never fully comfortable embracing on a literal level). The weird body horror dynamics are only there as an externalization of both the film's themes and the emotional landscape it's exploring.

One of the resonances of the film's metaphor is the mythological figure of the devouring father, eg. Kronos devouring he and Rhea's children, who continued to live in his stomach. In that myth, Rhea and her mother, Gaia, hid her last born, Zeus, and fed Kronos a stone instead. Zeus would grow up to overthrow his father and free his brothers and sisters. There, the archetypal overbearing father was in the end overcome by his son, the next patriarch. That story is refigured here as the primal mother working to free herself and her children from patriarchal tyranny, really. But one of the horrible realizations of the film is that there is no end to the horrors an abuser can inflict even after they are gone. Not just the lingering spectre of trauma, either. Notice how Hall will sometimes not only reproduce Roth's peculiar language, but also commit some of his abusive behaviours, this time on her daughter. That need to keep herself whole by keeping her daughter safe turns into demands, coercive bartering, and imprisoning. And It's hard not to notice Hall's motherly gesture to her daughter is a kiss on the end of a punch. These are not the same as the original abusive relationship, obviously, but they recapitulate it in smaller forms.

What makes the movie so troubling is its other theme: the movie is also about empty nest anxiety. We have a daughter who's on the cusp of adulthood and about to leave her single parent, which somehow seems to kick off a story about a mysterious man who keeps pricking a woman's need to be with an absent child who is safe but away somewhere vague and cannot be gotten to, calling it over and over again abandonment, even tho' the child was evidently taken. So the metaphor works on another, more negative level: it represents late motherhood anxieties manifesting as self-focused, domineering, even abusive behaviours.

Within the same metaphor we have two sets of emotional states: the story of living with abuse and trauma and trying to work oneself out from under one's wounds, and the story of being unable to overcome the anxiety that attends the loss of power when a loved one leaves, prompting erratic and unhealthy outbursts. Hall is at any given time, both a victim of the story's main abuser and herself the story's main abuser. It is deeply unsettling how the film makes those two states combine into the exact same emotional space, and bravura for how it uses that one metaphor to express both, while also grounding itself so emphatically in its own empathy. We are never for a moment allowed distance from Hall's emotions. We feel each one of them keenly and persuasively, no less when they are destructive. The movie creates a complex emotional and ethical space for its audience.

Tremendous film. You weirdos are nuts to be singling out Roth. He's great, but he's only a piece of this thing. This is Hall's movie through and through and she ought to win endless awards for it.

[therewillbeblus]

You weirdos are nuts to be singling out Roth.

I feel gaslit

[Mr Sausage]

You weirdos are nuts to be singling out Roth.

I feel gaslit

It's your fault.

[DarkImbecile]

And It's hard not to notice Hall's motherly gesture to her daughter is a kiss on the end of a punch.

So happy someone else brought this detail up, which helped me unlock exactly the duality of Hall’s role you describe. Glad you found it as simultaneously enervating and rewarding as I did, Mr Sausage!