Here Before

SXSW 2021 Greetings again from the darkness. Grief can be the most powerful and dangerous emotion we experience as humans. Anger and joy come and go, but real grief seeps into our marrow and becomes part of our being. Writer-director Stacey Gregg wisely tackles the topic with the assistance of the always excellent Andrea Riseborough (a resume loaded with strong projects) as Laura, a mother who begins to believe that her deceased daughter Josie has been reincarnated as the new neighbors' daughter, Megan (Niamh Dornan).

Ms. Gregg expertly builds tension and doubt through the film's first half, and throws a terrific curve ball in the final act ... one I kick myself and applaud the filmmaker for not seeing it coming. There is an awkwardness between the two families forced together by a shared dwelling wall. That awkwardness only builds as Laura continually oversteps boundaries when it comes to Megan, who seems to know entirely too many details when it comes to Josie's death.

Megan's parents, Marie (Eileen O'Higgins) and Chris (Martin McCann), are from a different socio-economic class than their neighbors, and the uncomfortable connection extends to Laura's husband, Brendon (Jonjo O'Neill) and son, Tadhg (Lewis McAkie). Whether it's in the front yard, at school, or the grocery story, each time these families cross paths leaves us with weird vibes and feeling more confused. Is something supernatural at play here?

The cinematography from Chloe Thomson is superb, and composer Adam Janota Bzowski is pitch perfect is giving us just enough at the right moments. Set in Belfast, this is a gripping thriller with terrific performances throughout. Stacey Gregg makes it look all too easy with her first feature film.

On paper, this should be a good film: a psychological thriller, centred on grief and on the tension between common sense and being desperate to believe in something beyond reality. However, other than some pretty decent acting, the film fails in every other respect.

The atmosphere and suspense doesn't properly build up, it's rather deflated throughout the film (it doesn't even properly pick up in the third act), neither does the psychological portrait of the main heroine. It's supposed to mainly be about her slow descent into grief-fuelled paranoia, but that gets side-tracked by a lack of coherence in every other character's behaviour.

It might have worked if it had been entirely focused on the main heroine's point of view, but instead we jump around following a bunch of characters whose motives and internal worlds are entirely opaque, being given nothing to work with. And then at the very end, where you hope for everything to finally fall into place, the resolution is anticlimactic and not particularly believable either.

This is a good movie that has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 86.%. On IMDB it has a 5.7 and when I read the reviews there are a lot of comments about it being 'boring' and 'dragging'. It's occurred to me these are things children say all the time. Lately, I've also noticed that any grown up movies that have any sophistication, at all, are getting bad scores on IMDB.

Maybe IMDB should start separating reviews from people 16 and under so they're not ruining the scores of good adult fare. So, endeth my rant.

This movie is a very good, low key, thriller that has you guessing right up to the end. When what's really going on is revealed it's a palm to the forehead moment. Andrea Riseborough is fantastic and this is a very good first feature film from writer/director, Stacey Gregg. Definitely worth a watch!

When a couple and their young daughter move in next door, Andrea Risborough, whose own daughter died years before, starts taking an interest in the girl and begins to believe that she may actually be her daughter.

Fascinating drama / thriller centred around motherhood and the loss of child. What holds this together do well is that you're never entirely sure where this is going. Is she just losing it following the loss of her daughter or is there something supernatural going on and why is the girl seemingly equally interested in Risborough? That it gets through all this mystery and comes up with a solid, convincing conclusion is to its great credit. Everyone in it acts very well, but of course Risborough is top of the pops here and gives a delivers a great turn, carefully avoiding endless, over the top melodrama. Definitely worth catching.

The acting, the mood, the cinematography... is superb. There is not much going on to be honest, but I actually loved the first 2/3 because the small details were clever, and tensions felt very real. I don't mind a slow burn when it's so well executed. For me, the" twist" ending was the let down. The movie is rather slow, and it way too much to unpack in the last 15 minutes, felt rushed and hard to swallow. The more I think about the ending, the more it really doesn't make much sense, and contrasts a lot with the rest of the movie that feels mature and believable. Still, reminds me a bit of "Birth" with Nicole Kidman... Not a great movie, but it kind of sticks with you.