Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Jenna Cato Bass
Starring: Chumisa Cosa, Nosipho Mtebe, Kamvalethu Jonas Raziya
South African race relations intermingle with North African mythology
in director Jenna Cato Bass's sunlit shocker Good Madam.
It's a cleverly conceived supernatural thriller, if ultimately clumsily
constructed. When Bass and her 11 (11!!!) co-writers stick to examining
post-apartheid racial dynamics, the film is insightful and sharp, but it
struggles to make its horror elements feel anything other than generic
and stale.
This haunted (or is it?) house tale takes place not in some centuries
old European gothic mansion but in a modern, well lit home in an upper
middle class suburb of Cape Town. When her grandmother passes away,
Tsidi (Chumisa Cosa) and her young daughter Winnie (Kamvalethu Jonas Raziya) find themselves homeless. With nowhere else to turn, Tsidi moves
herself and her daughter into the home where her estranged mother Mavis
(Nosipho Mtebe) has spent her adult life as a servant to the now
bedridden Diane.
Unlike her mother, who has known no other way, Tsidi is uncomfortable
in this world of white rule and black servitude. She clashes with her
mother, who refuses to even use Diane's china to drink her tea from, so
in thrall is she to her mistress. At first it seems this is simply a
clash of generational thinking, the younger, liberated Tsidi rubbing up
against her mother, still possessed by an apartheid era mindset. But as
a series of strange occurrences unfold, Tsidi begins to realise Diane's
control over her mother may stem from more than simply race and
class.
Good Madam has a set-up that wouldn't be out of place in
a Val Lewton movie, but it plays out almost completely in daylight.
Shunning a centuries old bias against the dark, Bass tells us it's
brightness, not darkness, that we should be wary of here. Evil is
personified in Diane's blond hair and light skin, her white bedsheets
and the sun-blasted corridors of her soulless home. Bass never hammers
home any of this, but rather allows us to naturally absorb such clever
details as the narrative unfolds. Her film has been compared to the work
of Jordan Peele, but it's far more subtly sophisticated in its
storytelling.
Well, at least for most of its running time. Once the cat jumps out of
the horror bag and the truth behind what's really at play in this house
is revealed, Good Madam morphs into an uninspired and
messy genre thriller of the sort Hollywood churns out a few times a
year. It certainly never feels like a script worked on by a dozen
writers, but it does feel like it's struggling to get its final message
across in a clear and concise manner. The use of Egyptian mythology
ironically comes off as lazy cultural appropriation, going no deeper
than a few expository shots of textbooks. Prior to that disappointing
final act, Bass does enough to suggest that if she can hook up with a
writer with a determined singular voice (as opposed to an entire
football team of scripters), she could be a new talent to watch on the
international horror scene.
Good Madam is on Shudder from
July 14th.
