Hoard

Greetings again from the darkness. I don't know why. I wish I could explain it. So many movies I admire or find intriguing are not the kind of movies that one would describe as uplifting, likable, or even watchable multiple times. The first feature film from writer-director Luna Carmoon is yet another for that category. It's simultaneously compelling and unpleasant - a difficult movie to watch with an unrelatable lead character. And yet, I couldn't turn away. The film won multiple awards at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, so obviously I'm not the only one drawn to this.

When we first meet Maria (newcomer Lily-Beau Leach), she's dumpster-diving with her mother (Hayley Squires, THE ELECTRICAL LIFE OF LOUIS WAN, 2021). Maria is around 8 years old and it's obvious her mom adores her despite being burdened with an unfortunate form of OCD. Mom is a hoarder-extraordinaire, and each evening she takes her young daughter to the streets to collect items that do nothing but add to the messy collections that make it nearly impossible to open the front door of their now disgusting home. As loving as her mother is, Maria can't help but prank her by hiding the rolls of aluminum foil from her lunchbox. Mom begins to freak out at the thought of used aluminum foil being wasted, and only relaxes once Maria pulls the wads out of her pocket.

A tragic and bizarre accident leads us to flash forward - with a visually clever transition - to Maria (now played by Saura Lightfoot-Leon, "Masters of the Air") in her final days of school, having lived with (and learned from) her warm-hearted foster mom Michelle (Samantha Spiro, ME BEFORE YOU, 2016) for nearly a decade. Although she lives a relatively 'normal' life now, Maria is a bit lost and unmotivated for the next step in life. Things shift quickly and dramatically for Maria when Michael (Joesph Quinn, A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE, 2024) shows up. Having been a previous foster child for Michelle, he is now in his late 20's and engaged to be married. Michelle doesn't hesitate to let him move back in temporarily, innocently unaware of what this unleashes in both Michael and Maria.

This twisted psychological drama reaches new heights (or new lows) as Michael and Maria discover each other on the same wavelength. Maria's repression combines with her reverting to childhood, despite her opportunity to begin again. She finds so many reminders of her mother: a fork, chalk, foil, a bedsheet drying on a clothesline, an iron, and a dumpster, all take her back to the stage which was set early on by her mother. At times it seems like Michael is being whisked away by her, although he is unable to stop their actions. The clean ending of a movie that wallows in messiness may disappoint some viewers, but for me, I found some relief. Filmmaker Carmoon succeeds in making us uncomfortable, yet I couldn't look away.

Opening in select theaters on September 6, 2024.

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.

An examination of trauma, this film is relentlessly tense as the vulnerability of the main characters means they're constantly on the edge. It left me asking questions of the effect of trauma on relationships and the individual, which I suspect was the aim.

The actors carry themselves faultless, the breakout young star a particular highlight, though the script falls flat a few times. The direction is stupendous - the way they turn a hot iron in to a menacing, predatory presence was a favourite of mine

Sometimes it's incoherent which makes the film difficult to follow scene by scene, and can fall in to itself, but the intensity never abides and all you really want is for these damaged people to turn out OK.

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.

In her directorial debut Luna Carmoon captures extraordinarily how we can be connected to our positive childhood memories and experiences even when they can be seen as strange and even traumatic by some. Essentially "Hoard" tells the story of love - platonic, friendly, physical or parental, and the way it can affect our behaviour and also our personality. But Carmoon decided to show slightly disturbing and sometimes disgusting side of connecting and bonding of two people, which made the whole film more gripping in my opinion. I found this concept intriguing and although there were some themes I would have wished to be more developed, I am really interested to see what comes out next from the mind of Carmoon. I must highlight the debut performance of Saura Lightfoot Leon in the leading role whose stubborn, emotional and fragile yet brave Maria carried the narrative. In the supporting role the new rising star Joseph Quinn proved that he has the talent even for more artistic approach in film-making than just for mainstream production like Stranger Things (his break-out role).