By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Starring Billy Barratt, Sora Wong and Sally Hawkins
Directed by Danny and Michael Philippou
Written by Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman
A24
Turns out, TALK TO ME was no fluke. With BRING HER BACK, Australian brothers Danny and Michael Philippou confirm their bona fides as purveyors of seriously disturbing horror, once again rooted in the inability to let go of the dead. In their debut feature, a group of teenagers got into terrible trouble attempting to contact the spirits of the deceased, one girl’s mother in particular; the new movie, as the title suggests, has another pair of youths falling under the sway of someone who will go to any lengths to have her child returned to her.
Switching from an ensemble piece to just a handful of central characters allows the Philippous to tighten the focus and thus the screws. BRING HER BACK is driven by a pair of remarkably empathetic performances by Billy Barratt and Sora Wong as siblings Andy and Piper, the latter of whom has only very limited sight. They’ve lost their father (in the first of many unsettlingly staged setpieces) and Andy, who’s about to turn 18, believes he’s fully capable of taking care of his little sister. The powers that be being the powers that be, they must instead go to live in the remote house of Laura (Sally Hawkins), a woman whose decades of experience as a counselor would seem to make her the perfect foster parent for a couple of newly orphaned kids.
Right from the start, however, there’s something off underneath Laura’s cheerful demeanor, and a quick sense that all is not quite right. The Philippous (Danny also scripted with TALK TO ME collaborator Bill Hinzman) drop in plenty of telling, meaningful details as Andy and Piper settle in. (Among other things, this film confirms that in today’s cinematic language, owning a VCR can make you seem sinister.) Then there’s Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), a preteen boy Laura is also looking after, who is clearly seriously troubled and also mute, and has apparently been that way since Laura lost her own daughter Cathy–who, like Piper, was blind. Given how much her absence weighs on Laura–her name is etched in the concrete beside the backyard swimming pool (and even the pool’s triangular shape gives off odd vibes)–it’s clear fairly early on that Cathy is the “her” of the title.
Yet one of the things that makes BRING HER BACK so successfully unnerving is that it doesn’t explicitly spell out what Laura’s process and endgame are. That works to keep us both tantalized and in a mounting state of dread, especially because the Philippous don’t hold back on showing us the ways in which Laura tries to drive a psychological wedge between Andy and Piper, and the impact that Oliver’s time with Laura has had on the boy. One of Laura’s methods of gaslighting Andy is particularly distressing in its emotional cruelty, and what Oliver does to himself results in moments guaranteed to make you look away from the screen. Big kudos to makeup effects creators Larry Van Duynhoven, Nick Nicolaou and Paul Katte, whose work is so raw and viscerally palpable that you never think of them as makeup effects.
As shocking and frightening as many individual scenes are in BRING HER BACK, its true impact derives from the tension and dynamic between its three leads. Barratt and first-timer Wong (making one of the most impressive acting debuts in recent years) have a supportive sibling chemistry that immediately gets you on their side, and individually have you caring for them and fearing for what Laura might have planned for them. And Hawkins is a revelation in her first serious horror role. Having previously faced otherworldly creatures in THE SHAPE OF WATER and two GODZILLA films, she here embodies a calculating human monster who proceeds from manipulation of her two charges to far worse. Behind it all, Hawkins also conveys the sense of loss that has poisoned Laura’s mind and leads her to commit the most unspeakable of acts. While BRING HER BACK takes its place as one of the under-your-skin scariest cinematic experiences of the year, it’s Hawkins and the Philippous’ attention to Laura’s character that makes the film tragic and heartbreaking as well as horrifying.
