Following a career-threatening injury, a young dancer moves into a
certain new York apartment building.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Natalie Erika James
Starring: Julia Garner, Dianne Wiest, Kevin McNally, Jim Sturgess, Marli Siu, Andrew Buchan, Rosy McEwen, Kobna
Holdbrook-Smith
Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby is the latest beloved horror
movie to get the uncalled-for prequel treatment. The motivation for such
ventures is generally down to simple brand recognition, yet the almost
non-existent marketing for Apartment 7A makes no mention of
its connection to the 1968 film, either because the suits at Paramount want
to distance themselves from persona non grata Polanski or they have such a
low opinion of director Natalie Erika James's film that they want to
avoid damaging their acclaimed IP (the latter would be a first for a
Hollywood studio).
As such, it's likely that many horror-hungry viewers who stumble across
Apartment 7A on its home of streaming service Paramount+ will
be unaware that it's a Rosemary's Baby prequel, and many more
won't have seen the original film. Those in the latter camp may find James's
film more rewarding, as they won't be burdened by comparisons to Polanski's
classic. If you haven't seen either film but plan to watch both, I implore
you to watch the 1968 film first as Apartment 7A rehashes so
much of its plot that it would actually make a subsequent viewing of
Rosemary's Baby less impactful.
For those who don't know, Rosemary's Baby stars Mia Farrow as
Rosemary Woodhouse, a young wife who moves into the Bramford, an old New
York apartment building, with her actor husband Guy (John Cassavettes).
Early on Rosemary briefly befriends another young female tenant named Terry
Gionoffrio, who as played by Julia Garner, is the protagonist of this
prequel.
In the fashion of 2011's The Thing, this year's
The First Omen
and Michael Winner's The Nightcomers, Apartment 7A takes details mentioned in the original film
and attempts to stretch them into a feature length movie, ending roughly at
the point where its predecessor begins. Here, Terry is a budding Broadway
star whose career seems prematurely cancelled when she injures her foot.
Trying her best to conceal her affliction, Terry tries out for the part in a
musical titled 'The Pale Crook' (presumably a nod to 'The Black Crook',
which is widely considered the first Broadway musical and features a
Faustian bargain echoed in the plot of Apartment 7A). Terry is humiliated by a director who cruelly forces her to repeatedly
perform the move that caused her injury, and later by the show's producer,
Alan Marchand (Jim Sturgess), who asks her to get on her hands and
knees and mimic the pigs of her family farm in Nebraska. Unwilling to stoop
to such a low, Terry refuses his sleazy request, but later has a change of
heart, following Alan to his home, which just happens to be the Bramford.
When the painkillers she's been chewing like M&Ms cause her to faint and
vomit, Terry is taken in by sympathetic elderly Bramford residents Minnie
(Dianne Wiest) and Roman Castavet (Kevin McNally). Seemingly
taking pity on Terry, they allow her to stay in an empty apartment they also
own in the building. They also give her a career boost by setting up a
meeting with Marchand, and thanks to some homeopathy they even cure her
injured foot. Terry finds her career back on track when Marchand gives her
the lead role in The Pale Crook, but if you've seen
Rosemary's Baby you know it's going to come at a cost.
Most prequels are pointless, but Apartment 7A is especially
redundant given how much time Rosemary's Baby devotes to its heroine
uncovering the backstory and lore of the Bramford - Polanski's film
practically serves as its own prequel. Focussing on a character whose
ultimate fate we learn in the first act of the original film is an odd
choice, as it's hard to get invested in Terry when we know exactly how
things are going to end for her. The biggest misstep
Apartment 7A makes is in how it takes so much of Rosemary's
narrative arc and simply grafts it onto Terry, repeating many of the same
plot beats and even transplanting Rosemary's roots in Nebraska over to
Terry, who seemed very much like a New Yorker in Polanski's film. Even if
you haven't seen Rosemary's Baby, it has been imitated so often in the decades since that
Apartment 7A's twists and revelations will inevitably feel stale and predictable.
As you might expect from a movie made for a streaming service,
Apartment 7A has the bland aesthetic of a made for TV movie.
It all looks too fresh and polished with unconvincing 1960s period
recreations, devoid of the granular texture of Polanski's film with its
meticulous production design that allowed you to practically breathe in the
distinctive musty odour of old people's apartments. James was likely
selected for the directing job because of her excellent debut horror movie
Relic, but she puts far more effort into her film's musical numbers - yes there
are musical numbers here; no less than four of them! - than into generating
suspense or scares.
Garner's performance is the film's one great asset. Much like her part in
The Assistant, the role of Terry requires her to play a young woman who suspects she's
involved in something wrong but goes along with it to a point for the sake
of her career, and she's very good at wordlessly portraying this sort of
moral dilemma. The '60s setting with its de facto misogyny is embraced by
James, who thankfully avoids making her heroine an anachronistically modern
day feminist dropped into a period setting. Terry is very much a young woman
of her time, close enough to the oncoming bra-burning revolution to
understand the way men treat her is wrong, yet still burdened by 20th
century expectations of how women should behave. However, it's ironic that a
1968 movie made by a future rapist is more explicitly feminist than a 2024
prequel helmed by a woman. In Polanski's film, much of the terror and
tragedy comes from the idea that Rosemary is betrayed by the very men who
are supposed to look after her, like her husband and doctor, whereas here
the evil of men is portrayed with less far nuance by the cartoonishly
misogynistic figure of Marchand, whom we expect to be a wrong 'un from the
off.
There are enough interesting ideas touched upon here (Satanists compared to
the Christian Right in their attitude to female bodily autonomy; the notion
of sinister forces tied into the history and lore of Broadway) to suggest
that James has attempted to shoehorn concepts she's had pinned to her
inspiration board into a franchise film, but Apartment 7A is
ultimately burdened by its necessity to tie into a previous movie. At a
certain point it seems like Terry is aware of what's really going on but is
happy to go along if it means achieving her dream of seeing her name in
lights, which is a compelling idea that has to eventually be dismissed so
her arc fits into the established lore. Garner is at her best when she leans
into this idea, and if you replaced New York with Gotham City this could be
a villainess origin story in the manner of Todd Phillips'
Joker.
What's most baffling about Apartment 7A is how it scuppers
its role as a double bill prequel by messing with the timeline in a way that
prohibits it from dovetailing naturally with Polanski's film. Halfway
through, Terry encounters Rosemary doing laundry in the basement, which
implies she already lives in the Bramford despite the apartment she and Guy
move into still being occupied by another character here. As pointless as
The Thing and The First Omen may be, at least
they don't serve to confuse anyone who makes the error of watching them
before having seen the classics whose coattails they're cynically attempting
to ride.
Apartment 7A is on Paramount+ from
September 27th.
