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| Allie (Anya Taylor-Joy) comforts a distraught Jack (George MacKay) In Marrowbone (2017) |
Somehow, I've seemed to have fallen into some Anya-Taylor Joy cinematic rabbit hole, and have watched a passel of her films recently, including Sergio G. Sanchez's feature directorial debut,
Marrowbone (2017). Sanchez is mostly known for writing two of J.A. Bayona's rather atmospheric films--
The Orphanage (2007) and
The Impossible (2012), so I knew that he was quite an effective and nuanced storyteller. Not to compare too much, but this film tries for
The Orphanage but doesn't quite meet that standard, either narratively or visually.
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| Something about creepy dolls/effigies gets me every time |
Like a film that I also plan to review,
Hereditary, the film opens with a DIY model of a house, with lots of doll/child figurines scattered about. The film is framed as a fairy tale with a beautifully illustrated book of watercolors entitled "Our Story" to introduce audiences to the Marrowbone clan--Jack, Billy, Anna, and Sam--the children of Rose Marrowbone, who has recently passed away due to a wasting illness. The backstory of this family is crucial: the Marrowbones are named after the home to which they flee from what appears to be a serial killer father. This house is rich with memories, as it is Rose's childhood home, but she steers the children away from their family trauma by suggesting that once the children cross an invisible line on the floor, "there will be no more memories. Our story begins here." Yet,
Marrowbone is really about how one cannot escape so easily, or erase, one's past, and the hauntings that occur in this ruined, and dilapidated old house are reminders of what clings to this family, despite supposed new beginnings. The kids have also built this massive fort in one of the
rooms because they have been told by Mom to "have a safe place
ready...in case he finds you." She clearly means dear old Dad.
Once Rose passes, the kids retreat from society and most visitors, clinging to each other for "no one will separate us--we are one." Only Allie (Anya-Taylor Joy), the local librarian, appears to connect with these kids, especially Jack (George MacKay). Cue hetero-romance plotline with even a mild sub-antagonist in Tom Porter (Kyle Soller), who competes for Allie's affections in this po-dunk "American" town. He also happens to be the solicitor who can demolish their family if he finds out that Rose has died, and there are an elaborate series of ruses used in order to provide him with Rose's signature on important documents. When Porter gets suspicious of the goings on at Marrowbone, Jack placates him with some cold hard cash--"blood money" seemingly stolen from their father's victims, and then taken when the family ran away. Of course, when Porter's financial well runs dry, he tries to get some more, and "sh** happens." Bad "sh**.
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| The Marrowbone clan sticks together at all costs |
The film makes the most of its setting, and the old homestead, Marrowbone, has plenty of creaking doors, overgrown yards, and dusty attics. Their poverty is emphasized in their spare, dirty clothing, especially in comparison to Allie and Porter's more modern garb. The film takes place in 1969, but Jack and his siblings look like they are from a far earlier era. The film has several timeline jumps that don't make a lot of sense until the film's end, starting with the family's arrival, then shortly after Rose's death and when an unwelcome visitor arrives, with the majority of the film taking place "6 months later," in July 1969. During this time period, the family makes sure to keep all mirrors covered, and lives in fear of the return of some ghost that seems to haunt them at every turn. This haunting, combined with their attempts to stay one step ahead of their solicitor, maintain the primary tensions of the film. Unfortunately, too many scenes spent with the family squabbling, or Jack clutching his head in pain, are repetitive moments that don't really take the narrative anywhere, nor provide the film with a source of momentum.
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| Jack is tasked with protecting his family, but some jobs may turn out to be too difficult |
Like many contemporary horror films, most of
Marrowbone's explanations come to a head during the film's climax, so from here onward, this review contains ***spoilers. Much of the research I'm undertaking these days is on a figure I call "the haunted heroine," a female protagonist whose past is clouded by trauma, and her fragile subjectivity leaves her vulnerable to supernatural happenings and hauntings. Yet, throughout the narrative, her perspective is questioned, and the specter of mental illness lurks as a possible explanation for her experiences. When one works on a book project, you have to flesh out your research with other possible examples. While there are not as many examples available in the horror genre, it does have its share of "haunted hero" characters, and Jack would fit right into this mold. As the oldest in his family and ostensibly the "man of the house," he is A) tasked by his mother to protect his siblings and keep his family together, B) marked by the most trauma, C) trusted as the audience's chief POV, since he not only goes to town, but interacts with a love interest to boot. Much of the film, his siblings are more like incredibly chatty background.
In a roundabout manner, the film goes back to a moment earlier in the narrative where a gunshot drives a hole into one of the windows, and we actually get to see what events occurred prior to the time jump to July 1969. **Turns out that not only did their psycho father find them, but knocked Jack unconscious, leaving his siblings to be systematically murdered (thankfully, these murders occur offscreen). Upon waking, and realizing what has happened, he traps Dad in the attic, and then walls up the room, hoping that Dad will just die from starvation. Yet, Jack's failure at protecting his family causes him to snap, ergo the mental illness part. Henceforth (July 1969), Jack sees his siblings around him, taking on their voices, and interacting with them as if they were still alive. Not only are there no ghosts, but Jack's Dad is still alive in the attic, eating rodents and biding his time until Porter tears the wall down and is killed by Dad--as he should. Allie stumbles into his clutches, and Jack, in a moment of lucidity, saves her, kills Dad, and it's all very standard. Allie and Jack end up a couple, and Allie picks up Jack's "medicine" for his dissociative identity disorder, but doesn't make him take it so that he can continue to live in a fantasy world where his siblings are still alive. Ugh. Anya Taylor-Joy's Allie is thus trapped in this life taking care of her mentally ill boyfriend, but she does it for
love. Like
The Orphanage, the film plays with spectral incognizance (ghosts do not realize that they are dead), then explaining that idea away with "mental illness," while throwing in some unnecessary gender-norm sentimentality at film's end. Sanchez certainly is good at creating atmosphere, but unfortunately falls into too many conventions to compel me to recommend
Marrowbone with enthusiasm.
