Emelie

Despite packing in an interesting premise & opening on a promising note, Emelie throws everything away in its final minutes to finish as a forgettable horror thriller. The setting is smartly built up, the suspense is effectively sustained for the majority of its runtime but what it lacks & what brings the whole film down eventually is the absence of a proper closure.

The story of Emelie follows the Thompson family that finds the couple going out to celebrate their wedding anniversary, leaving behind their three children in the care of a new babysitter. The kids are instantly enamoured by her as she allows them to do things their parents won't but as night progresses, they soon find out that their caretaker isn't what she claims to be.

Directed by Michael Thelin in what is his directional debut, Emelie takes its time to set up its plot & is often regular with its delivery of brief, unnerving moments from start to finish. It plays on every parent's worst nightmare i.e. leaving one's child in the care of a stranger, and is gripping on more occasions than one. But it could've been so much more if Thelin had figured out a better third act.

Its ominous ambiance is a definite plus as it keeps the tension alive, and the slow relaxed pacing is fitting too as it allows the plot & characters to breathe freely. Another highlight is Sarah Bolger who carries the entire film on her own and delivers a deranged performance. The kids are annoying as expected but a couple of them are nevertheless convincing in their interaction with the babysitter.

On an overall scale, Emelie had all the ingredients to finish as a nail-biting chiller but it tries to get ahead of itself in the final act and pays the price, for that move didn't just work against it but also squandered everything that had transpired before. It really is a shame because there was potential in this material but its decision to cop-out in the end ruins its chances of being counted amongst the better examples of its genre(s).

The movie started out promising enough but once the (dodgy) motive was revealed half-way through, the logical loopholes in the plot and weaknesses overall of the script started to show and it just became rather... meh.

And there was very little pay off in the end, it was supposed to be a thrilling ending but it just didn't work at all.

I don't know what more to say really, it's not a whole lot you can say about it as it is such a simple movie and it's impossible to talk about the plot without spoiling it.

But the acting was alright (Sarah Bolger will probably go on to do bigger and better things) and the cinematography was stellar, but yeah overall it just wasn't a great movie.

Emelie's impact falls short of what was intended for it. While disturbing, it never goes full force and almost borders on tame sometimes. The motivation seemed unnecessary to me and the film lost intensity the longer it went on. Also- I'm being picky at this point!- the transitions really bugged me. But, again, it was okay.

Led by the committed performance of Sarah Bolger, 'Emelie' unfolds as a creepy and atmospheric slow burn through the first hour or so, then it shifts into a kinetic, violent thriller. It never quite becomes what I consider to be a horror flick, though certain moments will evoke horror in viewers, as the twisted babysitter torments the three siblings in increasingly unsettling ways.

The music sets the tone early - right from the opening scene. A girl mentions to her friend on the phone that she isn't happy that she's been roped into babysitting tonight, then she's abruptly kidnapped by a passing car. Cut to a dad picking up a different girl and driving her to his house to babysit, and we immediately suspect that this "babysitter" is not who she claims to be. At first, she plays nice with the kids (two boys and a girl), returning to the oldest boy the game that his mom took away and letting them all paint on the wall. But her façade only holds up for so long. After she subjects the children to a particularly scarring video, they become suspicious of her, and I become suspicious of the film's concepts. The babysitter's goals and the film's goals are not in harmony. She wants something and needs to behave normally to get it, but the film wants to scare us, and to do that she must behave abnormally. At some point the film leans too heavily toward the scare efforts, which makes the babysitter's actions and plan far less believable. The first hour or so sets the mood. It's creepy and unnerving in a tame way that's particularly effective, but this approach is then abandoned in favor of one that resembles a more conventional violent thriller. Then we see the classic tropes: Characters make illogical, flat-out-dumb decisions and viewers are ambushed by a few jump scares. The stylistic turn mostly works but is nonetheless disappointing. The early moody creepfest had me so uncomfortable that I had to watch through the partially obstructed view of my fingers. It was cringey to the maximum. Though the second half of the film contained more action, I felt less suspense. The reveal was far less affecting than the eerie unknown.

Perhaps if the filmmakers put a bit more effort into the babysitter's backstory and plan, the entire movie would have held together more effectively. A few alterations could have lifted this from a watchable thriller to a terrific one.

Initially I thought this film was going to be great, it was unusual, and very different. The atypical babysitter under siege horror this was not, so I applaud them for twisting the original format. Unfortunately after a bright start, where you were left wondering what on Earth was going on, it just fell really flat, the plot made virtually no sense, I mean how on Earth did she know she'd end up there? What was the point in the entire charade? It makes no sense. At times I thought the script was a little tasteless to say the least, putting kids through what she did was unnecessary at times, I didn't care much for it.

So it's a real mixed bag, a great idea, but unfortunately the execution was poor, the acting was great and the production values were strong. Sarah Bolger was the best thing about it.

Too many wasted opportunities. 5/10