Directed By Max and Sam Eggers

Starring – Brandy Norwood, Andrew Burnap, Kathryn Hunter

The Plot – A young couple’s (Norwood, Burnap) life is thrown into disarray when they reluctantly agree to take in the man’s estranged mother (Hunter). As tensions rise, the couple’s seemingly normal home becomes a battleground of paranoia and fear. The mother’s erratic behavior and mysterious past unveil dark secrets that threaten to unravel the couple’s relationship. As they grapple with the sinister presence that takes over their home, they must confront their own demons and the haunting reality of what lurks in the front room. This psychological thriller delves into themes of family, trust, and the thin line between reality and madness.

Rated R for adult language, some violent/disturbing content, brief sexuality and nudity

The Front Room | Official Trailer 2 | A24 (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

Being a hardcore fan of Robert Eggers, I couldn’t wait to experience what his younger brothers brought to the table, and while the similarities with their elder are certainly there in everything from fearless approaches to character psychologies, it’s what they do differently that allows them to stand out, leaving ‘The Front Room’ to feel like anything other than I was expecting. Instead of overwhelming dread, the brothers here instead tap into their own brand of tonal consistency, opting for more of the humorously human approach of its depicted characters, particularly in the gross-out gags of Hunter’s stepmother character unapologetically being depicted so that the audience has an unapologetically unfiltered look at caretaking, and how psychologically draining such an honorable excursion wears on your subconscious. While I have my own issues with the dependency that these brothers take in the depiction of such, there’s something commendable about dual visionaries who prescribe to the accessibility and authenticity that only documentaries tend to reach for, and regardless of how you feel about the film, you will undoubtedly laugh a time or two, whether intentional or not. In addition to their bold directorial debuts, the brothers Eggers are equally aided by a tremendous layer of production values, particularly in the set designs that vividly paints meaning into the mental chess game being played between this young couple and their new houseguest. The longer that this older woman stays in the house, the more we start to see it transform before our very eyes, and between this and the meaning of the imagery, with one particularly revealing frame involving the dinner table, we’re able to tap into the mentality of this ignorantly unaware intruder, resulting in an increasing confidence for her to test the waters with everything from her overbearing spiritual beliefs to underlining racism, that plays more than a scintillating hand in setting the precedent between Norwood and Hunter’s characters, as the primary conflicting parties. Speaking of imagery, the cinematography from Ava Berkofsky is quite invasive and claustrophobic during real time sequences, yet artistically transfixing during dream and fantasy sequences, with rich luminescence and storyboard framing that capture the evocative sense of religious iconography to their appeal. Lastly, this film would be nothing without the whirlwind of Hunter commanding the attention of every room she decides to walk into, all with unabashed honesty and frailty that lead to a bit of a grotesque being in stature. Hunter’s strongest quality is the audaciousness that she supplants to interactions that are continuously stuffy, but natural in their unraveling, and while Norwood does provide the spring that she constantly bounces off of, it’s ultimately Hunter who makes the most of the engagement, tapping into a sinister side of familial bonds that wholeheartedly takes advantage of to truly get whatever she wants at any given moment.

NEGATIVES

Unfortunately, ‘The Front Room’ isn’t quite the film that was advertised, and as a result it’s undoubtedly one of my least favorite A24 films that I have experienced to date. Reasons for this are certainly in the dependency of the overwhelmingly unintentional comedic situations, which not only rob the film of any suspense or supposedly scary situation, but abruptly end scenes and sequences with gross-out bodily gags that serve as the exclamation point to one serious waste of time. To be fair, I can give the movies and the brothers Eggers credit for vividly fleshing out the overwhelming circumstances of inheriting a stranger with undocumented baggage, but it never results in anything that even came close to holding my attention within the urgency and vulnerability of the protagonist’s situations, resulting in nothing in the way of thrills or chills that even comes close to feeling like a horror or psychological thriller movie. On those gags, I previously commended the Eggers fearlessness for articulating a particular situation, but their intention crosses overkill by the film’s midway point, where we’ve already seen every bodily fluid out of every orifice of this elderly woman. Being somebody who typically basks in the discomfort of grotesque bodily horror, it’s a bit jarring that I found little appealing about an old woman’s body shutting down, especially with it framed in comedic enveloping, with an obviously on-the-nose score. But perhaps because the film has so little narratively for audiences to sink their teeth into, both in the air of underwhelming characters and unexplored themes, that it leaves the gross-out gags feeling like meaningless shock humor that is purely there just to jolt a reaction, leaving effectiveness that continuously feels temporary, instead of something that builds towards an overwhelming payoff. On that front, the ending is quite abrupt and disappointing, especially with so little movement in the way of expectations, where the resolution could only rightfully go one way without completely losing the audience. Is it satisfying? Sure, as a means of dispersed karma, but because my attachment to these characters was so minimal, it never attains that level of overwhelming satisfaction that comes from appreciation of their plights, and despite predictability, the resolution comes with ten minutes left in the movie, and then it simply just lingers to a big reveal in the closing moments that anyone paying attention for five minutes could’ve seen coming from a mile away. Finally, the script as a whole lacks commitment towards uncovering the necessary depth needed to spawn a compelling narrative, with unrelenting velocity in pacing that stands as a result of an 89 minute run time that frequently works overtime to keep the storytelling moving. This is especially evident during the opening act of the movie, where so many arcs and evolutions are continuously shortchanged to get to the meat of the many conflicts under this household, and while climaxes certainly conjure the biggest bang for your buck of memorability, an impactful effect only renders itself with a thoroughly layered progression in cause, and that’s something that the script rarely has time to properly utilize, resulting in these abrupt swings in character motivations that often come out of nowhere. If someone told me that an hour of deleted footage was left on the cutting room floor, I would have no choice but to believe it, as the primary conflict between Norwood and Hunter’s characters takes a nose dive into confrontational within the first day that the latter comes to stay with the former, made worse by confusing editing that creatively blurs the line of detectability between the real world and the dream world of these characters. There aren’t quite as many dream fake-outs as expected with many contemporary horror films, but they’re structured in ways where reality comes across as very fantastical and exaggerated, leaving us questioning the transparency and legitimacy of what we’re seeing, but rarely in ways that feel advantageous to the integrity of the film.

OVERALL
‘The Front Room’ is a stomach-churning debut for Max and Sam Eggers, but one that ultimately feels overwhelmed by the overlooked steps of vital storytelling and motivational pacing that continuously makes it a chore to remain invested to flatly uninteresting characters and a comedic dependency that robs it of its defining horror elements. Despite a revolting performance from Hunter, who emotionally, physically and bodily gives her all to one of the year’s most detestable characters, the execution is a fright-less shell that settles on strange instead of scintillating, leaving ‘The Front Room’ without the four walls needed to build a proper foundation towards keeping the momentum inside.

My Grade: 5/10 or D+