Horror cinema is becoming a recurring medium for analyze gender roles, create metaphors and tell stories in which familiar situations are exaggerated and recounted in atypical ways in dramas, so it is not surprising that the nightmare of female neurosis in ‘Men’ has gotten a perhaps more bitter complement, but one that it shares with Garland’s an ending in which the impossible takes shape, ‘Resurrection’ by Andrew Semans.
The film has been presented at Sitges 2022, where this year there is no shortage of films about mental fracture and elements of toxic masculinity study, in this case about psychologically abusive relationships although apparently innocuous, which connects with the flashback sections of ‘Men’, only that in this case, instead of studying the toxic vulnerability focuses on one person’s power of control over anotherparenting roles and the inability to assume the economic independence of women in some couples.
Rebecca Hall’s Troubled Show
Rebecca Hall returns to terror another year after earning a reputation as one of its best actresses with ‘The Night House’ and here she plays Margaret, a successful professional, precise, and who raises her daughter alone, being the boss in charge of her office and with a casual flirtation with a co-worker who satisfies her sexually, a seemingly perfect present, in which she manages all of her impeccable reality. Her only problem is that her teenage daughter Abbie (Grace Kaufman) will soon be leaving home to go to college.
This may or may not be the element that causes his reality to begin to crack when he happens to see the familiar face of an old partner, David (Tim Roth). The perfect Margaret stumbles and runs away, having severe panic attacks and believing she is being followed. This is where Hall’s show begins, who is superb as Margaret, first radiating confidence and style until she is reunited with the specter of all her insecurities. After seeing David again, there is a descent into madness that could not be better portrayed than by Hall.
We don’t need to know anything about what’s happened to Roth’s character, just her reaction tells us that she’s shocked and transfixed for good reason. We see David go from a distant and clueless presence to an insidious and omnipresent monster that is more threatening because he doesn’t really make it clear what his intentions are. And this before learning of Margaret’s history with him, which we hear from Hall’s mouth in an impressive uninterrupted monologue of absolute terror for 8 minutes.
an insane ending
At that point, ‘Resurrection’ takes a turn not everyone will buy, though its past is painfully believable. A case of grooming and coercive control that completely disarms the person and takes unexpected paths until it reaches such a crazy ending that everything we’ve seen before no longer matters, for better or for worse. Weeks script decides to shock the audience in a wickedly wacky way, so much so that many may find it unintentionally funny. An impact coda and body horror which will leave you debating its meaning.
It can be seen from the inversion of gender roles, the limits of masculine toxicity or simply the desire to break with a slab of control via catharsis. However, the scariest part of the whole is being able to witness and believe how a clearly intelligent, capable and proactive person can so quickly be reduced to little more than one automaton at the will of another. It reminds us that we all have an acquaintance who, for some reason, are not able to see the influence of her partner, and we cannot understand why everyone sees it except her.
‘Resurrection’ takes this idea to truly dark extremes, almost like a great theatrical representation of that invisible thread so common that ties people together with a relationship between victim and puppeteer, delving into the dynamics but without finding the reasons. It is a film that lives more in the subsequent conversation than in the strength of its imagesbut at least, it is another depressing and stale nightmare made by the talent of Rebecca Hall, whose filmography already accumulates a series of sick and dark titles in which she seems to act as her own muse.