An expectant mother begins to suspect her mother-in-law of having
sinister intentions towards her child.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Max Eggers, Sam Eggers
Starring: Brandy Norwood, Kathryn Hunter, Andrew Burnap, Neal Huff
Of all the isms, ageism might be the most baffling. If we're lucky, we're
all going to be old some day so discriminating against the elderly means
we're only making things tougher for our future selves. It's like if white
people knew they were going to turn black when they hit 65 yet continued to
be racist. And yet, possibly because of its disconnect from race, gender or
sexuality, ageism is the most acceptable and unquestioned form of prejudice,
so much so that in our supposedly enlightened modern times we still get
movies that mock the elderly for cheap laughs.
That's exactly what we get with The Front Room. Written and directed by Max and Sam Eggers (brothers of
The Northman
director Robert) from a short story by 'The Woman in Black' author
Susan Hill, The Front Room is a sloppy mashup of two
horror subgenres. It's part hagsploitation, featuring as it does an elderly
female antagonist, and part Rosemary's Baby-esque pregnancy horror. Except it doesn't function as a horror movie
whatsoever, preferring as it does to generate gross-out gags at the expense
of the elderly.
When pregnant Belinda (Brandy Norwood, best known to R&B fans as
simply Brandy) quits her college teaching job due to racist treatment by the
administration, it leaves herself and her husband Norman (Andrew Burnap) in a bit of a financial pickle, struggling to pay off their mortgage.
Their economic woes end when Norman's father passes away and his elderly
stepmother Solange (Kathryn Hunter) decides to pass on her
inheritance to Norman and Belinda. But it comes with a significant codicil:
they will only receive Solange's money if they allow her to move into their
home.
Norman tries to explain to Belinda just what a looney tune Solange is,
claiming she regularly traumatised him as a child with her Christian
fundamentalist ways, but Belinda convinces him that the end to their money
troubles will make the old bat worth putting up with. How bad can she
be?
Pretty damn bad, as it turns out. Solange is barely in the door before
she's disrupting Norman and Solange's lives. Claiming she can't negotiate
stairs, she insists that she move into the ground floor front room they had
planned as a nursery for their unborn child. She mocks Belinda's choice of a
baby name and convinces her to change it to one of her own choosing. Belinda
is subjected to racist micro and not so micro aggressions. Solange fills the
house with furniture that wouldn't be out of place in the Bates house. But
what really bothers Belinda is Solange's seemingly supernatural awareness of
details she hasn't been made privy to, like the loss of Belinda's stillborn
son a couple of years ago. In classic Mia Farrow fashion, Belinda begins to
fear that Solange has sinister intentions towards her unborn child. And in
classic John Cassavetes fashion, Norman begins to take Solange's side.
Solange is indeed a monster, but for all her racism and creepy
Christianity, the film is more concerned with her incontinence as a means of
demonising her. The Eggers childishly revel in giving us scene after scene
of Solange shitting herself, their camera dwelling on soiled sheets and
close-ups of flushing toilets and brown stains on every surface. For Belinda
and Norman, the worst thing about Solange is something she can't control,
something which will afflict a lot of us if we reach a certain age.
But as much of a monster as Solange may be, Belinda and Norman don't have a
moral leg to stand on. It's impossible to sympathise with this couple who
gladly took Solange's money and are now finding they have to earn it.
Whenever Solange hints that they've made their soiled bed and now have to
lie in it, you can't help but nod along with the old biddy. Most of us have
had to share a dwelling with someone we didn't get along with because we
couldn't afford a place of our own, so I can't imagine too many viewers will
have much sympathy for the entitled Belinda and Norman.
The biggest problem with The Front Room is that it doesn't
know whether it's a supernatural thriller or a glorified '70s sitcom. The
supernatural aspect is largely forgotten about at a certain point, and the
special powers it's hinted Solange has in her locker make the final twist a
head-scratcher. Hunter certainly seems to believe she's in a comedy, with a
hammy performance that will require subtitles for those of us who weren't
born south of the Mason-Dixon line. Conversely, Brandy is barely awake,
never reacting to the escalating scenario with the level of emotion it
requires. For all its hamminess, The Front Room somehow
resists the temptation to give Belinda a male child, denying us the moment
where she confronts Solange and Brandy defiantly declares "The boy is
mine!"
The Front Room is in UK/ROI
cinemas from October 25th.
