There is a bottomless well of grief in Bring Her Back. It belongs to Laura (Sally Hawkins from The Shape of Water), a foster mom with an occult agenda that requires real sacrifice.
This soon becomes apparent to her latest charges, Piper (Sora Wong) and her step-brother Andy (Billy Barratt), after their Pops cracks his coconut in a tragic shower fall.
Laura lives on a decaying MCM estate in rural Australia, with her stuffed dog, Pom Pom, a cat named Junkman, and her mute son, Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips). While she clearly adores Piper, a legally blind girl, Laura doesn’t care for her protective older brother, who wants full guardianship when he turns 18 in a few months.
But a few months is ample time for Laura’s deeply demented strategy derived from browsing some quality Russian Dark Web videos on the subject of resurrection.
Fresh off the success of their debut Talk To Me (2022), Aussie siblings Danny and Michael Philippou have landed another emotional whopper. In both films, the meticulous character development is every bit as important as the tension. It’s a simple equation: better written parts result in more audience buy-in.
Piper and Andy squabble adorably, but their loyalty to each other is sorely tested by Laura, a master manipulator, and by the frighteningly feral Oliver. Philips will surely win Best Performance By a Creepy Kid in a Horror or Drama feature.
It’s a part he really sinks his teeth into!
Yet it’s Sally Hawkins’ immeasurable madness that fuels Bring Her Back. Laura is terrifying in her fanaticism, and also somehow sympathetic, because her sense of loss is demonstrated so profoundly over the film’s running time.
It’s not a pleasant trip. Laura’s grief has defined and ruined her, turning her into a monster willing to inflict harm on children, just so she can have another shot with her own deceased daughter—currently residing in a freezer.
The intricacies of Laura’s ritual and the growing discomfort of Piper and Andy is a brutal pill that might need a gallon or two of water to get down. Bring Her Back is a powerhouse cinematic happening, but the human devastation depicted will likely not inspire multiple viewings.
There’s just too much trauma dump for one sitting.
horrificflicks.com 