“Resurrection” (2022)
Disappointing and disturbing psychological horror.
Disappointing and disturbing psychological horror.
I watched Resurrection purely on the basis of loving the acting careers hence far of its two main protagonists, with Rebecca Hall first coming to my attention in Christopher Nolan’s incredible (and often overlooked) The Prestige in 2006 and being the Quentin Tarantino obsessive that I am, I’m always happy to watch a film including one of his “gang” members, the one and only, Tim Roth. Both provide effortlessly brilliant performances here in a film with an unspeakable reveal that forms the basis of the central theme of the film, and a film that rather disappointed me.
Here are your two principal players:
“Margaret” (Rebecca Hall) From power suited alpha and controlled dominance within her bubbled selfish environment to an anxiety riddled mess scared of her own shadow through horrifying glimpses into a long ago past, Rebecca Hall brilliantly captures the extremes of the emotional spectrum. Domineering, sexually free and with a life she has both by the tail and under her control, to gibbering mess, distracted, stressed and full of paranoiac anxiety that slowly becomes a horrible reality. Hall is fantastic as an overbearing mother to “Abbie” (Grace Kaufman) and someone she affectionately calls “Smidge” but whom she’s also mollycoddling with the same “kindness” she’s been running away from for nearly twenty years.
“David” (Tim Roth) Leaving aside the connections to Quentin Tarantino, may I also heartily endorse Roth’s portrayals in last years brilliant Sundown or perhaps his horribly brilliant appearance in Tim Burton’s reimagining of the Planet of the Apes two decades ago? Here Roth has the smiling cold dead eyes of a psychological abuser who forever speaks in inverted language, of him wanting only the very best for Margaret whilst masked in acts of “kindness” that are anything but. Everything is from his perspective, his control of the situation, his psychological and ritualistic abuse and negative inverted reinforcements that he, and only he alone, can see how majestic and incredible Margaret is. “I just want you to be happy” states Roth in a chilling portrayal of unhinged psychological abuse.
Leaving aside the horrible reveal so early on in the film (and horrifying it certainly is and the central strand of the continuing psychological abuse), I loved Rebecca Hall’s central performance, Roth’s shadowy counterpoint, but not even a homage, deliberate or not, to the diner scene in Pulp Fiction could save any affection I had for this film. Written and directed by Andrew Semans in only his second feature length film and ten years since his debut with Nancy, Please in 2012, I’ll end with the only headline or review I’ve seen connected to this film (from The Washington Post) and only because I needed to for the purposes of including the image shown above from the scene in the diner:
“Surreal ‘Resurrection’ may be the nuttiest horror movie of the summer”
Thanks for reading. Just for larks as always, and always a human reaction rather than spoilers galore. My three most recently published film articles are linked below or there’s well over 100 blog articles (300+ individual films) within my archives from which to choose:
“Nobody” (2021)
“They say God doesn’t close a door before opening another”.medium.com
“Nomadland” (2020)
Heart breaking study of life after death.medium.com
“Limbo” (2020).
“It’s a good job God made dreaming for free”.medium.com