Hoard

Young Maria (Lily-Beau Leach) has a close relationship with her mother Cynthia (Hayley Squires) in 1980s London. Cynthia is a single mother who is a hoarder and has embroiled her young daughter in her obsession. When Cynthia is killed by a collapsing pile of rubbish Maria is sent to live with a foster mother called Michelle (Samantha Spiro). Ten years later the now teenage Maria (Saura Lightfoot Leon) establishes an intense, obsessive relationship with another of Michelle's foster children called Michael (Joseph Quinn), who is now a grown man, and who also happens to be a bin man. Writer/director Luna Carmoon's 2023 debut feature film is an edgy, visceral psychological drama dealing with the legacy of the past, memory and childhood, the traumas and obsessions of life, and coping mechanisms (such as hoarding) for the emotional pain of loss (you wonder about Cynthia). With references to 'Last Tango in Paris' and 'The Tin Drum', as well as a sitting room 'bullfight', this is daring stuff (at least for a post 1970s world) made by a new female writer/director prospect.

Hoard is a 2023 Semi-Biographical exploration of unprocessed grief and its potential long term effect on an adolescent.

It's the feature film debut of Luna Carmoon whose 2020 short film Shagbands I watched prior to Hoard. Both Shagbands and Hoard are gritty dramas taking place in the east end of London with a theme of growing up as a young girl in an area of deprivation. Where Hoard differs however is in its use of surrealist techniques in a few of the scenes. Arguably the easiest thing to write about is your own life but it's in the more surrealist moments where the lines between reality and fiction are blurred. This both helped to keep me on the edge of my seat as a viewer but also added to the main characters sense of confusion and dread as parts of her childhood memories start to come back to her.

The film spends a good 30 minutes at the start introducing us to a young Maria (around eight years old) and her mother Cynthia. The pair clearly have a deep bond however Cynthia has a severe hoarding problem and it takes a toll on Maria's school life. Half an hour of set up may seem excessive to some however it's crucial to the rest of the narrative that you buy into the two characters strong connection.

Fast forward a few years and now 16 year old Maria is living with her foster mother. All seems well until another previously fostered child (now an adult) Michael comes back to stay. The pair develop a relationship the type of which Maria hasn't felt since the relationship she had with her mother. This brings up a whole host of emotions that the majority of us would struggle to deal with, let alone a 16 year old.

If I had any criticisms it's that the film tries to do so much that it couldn't possibly manage to answer all the questions that I had by the time the credits rolled.

Oh and fair warning there is a Saltburn esc yucky scene.

That being said, Hoard is a striking debut that has a very real and emotional backbone and is levelled off with this surrealist, visually intriguing style. Luna Carmoon is definitely a director with a big future.

It will turn out to be a visceral nightmare for anyone with OCD, so it's best to keep your distance.

Now keeping my courteous forewarning aside, this just didn't hit the mark for me, even though I get what they were trying to do, and what they have had in their minds.

A lot of it comes down to the inefficient execution which focuses way too much on visuals and forgets to build a strong emotional groundwork.

Even though I like their intent to highlight 'hoarder disorder' and them providing a voice to those affected by it.

But the real question is, did the story do enough to foster compassion for people dealing with such issues? Or at least help others understand their off-beat mindset better?

I don't think so.

The young "Maria" (Lily-Beau Leach) lives with her loving mum (Hayley Squires) in an home full to the brim of junk. Some of it just bric-a-brac, some of it more distasteful and unhealthy, but the pair rub along well enough scavenging their way through skips and bins. "Maria" has a tough time at school and doesn't really fit in, so when an accident at home sees her put into foster care, she has quite a bit of adjusting to do under the care of the savvy "Michelle" (Samantha Spiro). Now we scoot forward to her late teens where she (now Saura Lightfoot-Leon) is still living with "Michelle" and seemingly quite a content. One morning it's announced that "Michael" (Joseph Quinn), who was a former charge, is coming to stay for a while whilst his housing is sorted out. He's a decent cove with a girlfriend expecting a baby. Almost immediately he arrives, the two click. Not quite in any conventional sense, but there does seem to be something between them, and understanding. It's this that starts "Maria" thinking of her past, pining for it even - especially when a delivery man presents her with something entirely unexpected in a small package! With the two of them living increasingly closely, how might their relationship develop? Now this isn't for the squeamish. Right from the start we experience the rather sticky downsides of their quite grubby way of life, and as the story moves to it's second phase it becomes a potent, if shallow, character study of two people that just don't conform. The problem for me here is that the drama goes nowhere. It's a sequence of observations of the life of a woman that I didn't feel I knew on any level at all. Her behaviour is unsettling but it seemed to me that was so that the audience could feel unsettled, squirm in our chairs a bit, rather than because the character of "Maria" was evolving in any way. Indeed she seems to retrogress as the film just becomes increasingly tasteless and contrived. It's rare to see people leave an arthouse cinema mid-film, but they did during this. I didn't, but I am not at all sure what the point was, or to whom this is aimed. It has it's moments and at times is really visceral, but sorry - by the end I found it all just a bit too introspective and dull.

This movie is undeniably weird man. It reminded me of the feeling I had watching "How to Talk to Girls at Parties", which was weird in its own way. I mention this comparison 'cause both films caught me off guard-I wasn't expecting anything unusual going in. I thought this movie would just be about hoarding.

For the most part, the film presents itself as normal, but it's sprinkled with random, odd scenes before hitting a huge "wtf" moment. It doesn't build up to its weirdness the way you'd expect. Instead, it plays out like a typical coming-of-age story for long stretches before suddenly hits you with its eccentricities. The movie covers a lot of ground, mostly exploring grief. Does it kinda well because it doesn't feel like it's the theme put at the forefront. Hoarding plays a major role too, and I liked how the mother, Cynthia, was portrayed. Her hoarding-she's not demonized, just shown as an unwell person. Still, you can see her kid's in a bad situation.

The main character, Maria, wasn't very relatable. She had moments of normalcy-just a teen graduating, partying-but that fades quickly. Her best friend was the character I liked the most, and the film felt more grounded when she was on screen. Once she's gone, things spiral into chaos. In contrast, Joseph Quinn's character, Michael, seemed to thrive in the madness. His relationship with Maria pushes the psychological tension to new extremes. When he's on screen things get weird, and when the best friends on screen things feel more normal.

The movie opens in a way that's both weird and sad-watching someone grow up in such an environment. But then they had so many moments of just pure simple joy, Maria and her mother. I was curious how the mother's hoarding would affect Maria as she grew up, but oddly, it feels like that thread gets dropped temporarily in the film, despite the time spent on her childhood. But it all comes full circle.

There are some truly shocking scenes-none more so than the bizarre "cereal-matador" eating scene. I went into the film knowing little, but it turned out to be much stranger than I expected. A lot happens off-screen, and the viewer is left to piece things together. Despite the chaos, I wasn't bored-it's like watching a car crash. It's messy and unsettling, but I can't look away.

The bond between Maria and her mother in her childhood is strange, and her relationship with Michael later on is even stranger. The randomness of it all adds to the film's peculiar charm. Some parts feel normal when taken out of context, but with context, they become even weirder. The film's portrayal of grief is particularly unconventional.

At over two hours, the toxic dynamics start to test your patience. The movie wraps up on a relatively normal note, almost as if nothing had ever happened. Hoard is a wild ride-simultaneously uncomfortable, romantic, and unhealthy in the same breath. It's not a masterpiece, but I enjoyed it. Though it felt like it dragged toward the end, it eventually gets there. Overall, it's packed with peculiar moments that perfectly suit its unusual story. People grieve in different ways, this is definitely the weirdest I've seen.