MARROWBONE (2017)

Studio:       Magnet Releasing
Director:    Sergio G. Sanchez
Writer:       Sergio G. Sanchez
Producer:  Belen Atienza, Alvaro Augustin, Ghislain Barrois
Stars:     George MacKay, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Mia Goth, Matthew Stagg, Kyle Soller, Nicola Harrison, Tom Fisher, Paul Jesson, Myra Kathryn Pearse

Review Score:

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Summary:

Four siblings attempting to hide from the world remain haunted by a terrible secret in their family’s troubled past.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Fleeing from her serial killer husband Simon Fairbairn, who was known as ‘The Beast of Bampton’ in England, Rose moves her children Jack, Jane, Billy, and Sam back to her remote childhood home in America. As part of their attempt to remain hidden, Rose has everyone take her maiden name Marrowbone.

At a beachside landmark called ‘Red Witch Rock,’ the four siblings make friends with Allie, a local girl who lives on a nearby farm. Jack and Allie gradually develop a romance.

Bedridden with a terminal illness, Rose has Jack swear to keep their family hidden until he turns 21. Jack is distressed to discover his mother kept a box of money his father stole from victims, which Rose told the court she did not have. Rose dies. The children agree to keep her death secret.

Having escaped prison, Simon tracks down his family and fires a bullet through the house’s window. Hoping to make his father go away, Jack goes outside to give his father the box of money. Simon strikes Jack in his head with the box. Simon attempts to strangle his son. Jack stabs his father in the throat and flees. Simon recovers and knocks Jack off a short cliff.

Simon goes to the house where Jane, Billy, and Sam are hiding in the attic. Simon murders all three children. Jack recovers, rushes back to the house, and finds his siblings dead.

Distraught, Jack prepares to shoot himself with his father’s rifle. Instead, Jack’s mind saves him by creating multiple personalities. Jack begins imagining that Jane, Billy, and Sam are still living with him in the house. Jack covers up all of the mirrors in the home so that he cannot see he is alone and bricks up the attic door with Simon presumably dead inside.

Six Months Later – Jack bikes into town to see Allie at the library. Business agent Tom Porter, who is also interested in Allie, comes to see her as well. Tom ends up telling Jack that he will be coming by the house the next day to obtain Rose’s signature and collect $200 to complete the estate transfer.

Jack returns home to his worried siblings. Billy suggests retrieving the moneybox to pay the $200. Jane reminds Jack of his promise to never touch that blood money again. Billy retrieves the box anyway from where Simon struck Jack with it.

Tom arrives the next day as the siblings race to put the house in order. Jane forges her mother’s signature on the papers. Jack convinces Tom to accept cash, even though it is in British pounds.

While the siblings play that evening, a drop cloth falls from a mirror and strange sounds are heard from the attic. Jane claims their ghost has returned because they used the cursed money. Billy climbs to the roof and drops the moneybox down a chimney.

While giving her a ride home, Tom plants an idea in Allie’s head that Jack’s father was even worse than Jack told her. Allie later asks Jack about Simon while on a beach trip together. From a distance, Tom spies Jack and Allie kissing.

When Jack returns home, Billy berates him for unnecessarily leaving the house to be with Allie. Frustrations boil over as the brothers argue about Allie compromising their secret life.

Sam steals Jack’s keys to get into Rose’s locked bedroom. Sam hears strange noises from the ceiling before accidentally knocking a cloth from a mirror. Sam becomes frightened when he sees his reflection seemingly turn into the ghost.

Jane tells Jack that Sam supposedly saw the ghost. Jack points out that the ghost was a story they made up to keep the truth from Sam about having walled up their father inside the attic. Jane claims they need to give Simon a proper burial, which Jack refuses.

Tom surprises Allie with train tickets. Allie intimates that she isn’t interested because she is involved with Jack. Upset, Tom leaves Allie with newspaper clippings revealing that Jack’s father was a notorious serial killer.

A ghoulish hand reaches at Jane when she tries coaxing a raccoon out of a hole leading to the attic.

Tom’s boss offers him a partnership in their firm, but requires that Tom buy 10% of the company’s stock for $5,000. Tom realizes from his files that the Fairbairn family was suspected of keeping the 10,000 pounds stolen by Simon. Tom goes to see Jack and threatens to blackmail him for the money.

Billy climbs down the chimney to retrieve the moneybox. Billy ends up in the attic where he finds a mutilated raccoon. A gaunt figure tries strangling Billy with the rope he used to rappel down. Billy cuts the rope to escape, but suffers a deep wound to his side and drops the box.

Jack wakes from another blackout. Billy claims that Simon is still alive in the attic, having subsisted on stray animals and rainwater. Jack collapses again. Jane tells Billy they need Allie to save Jack.

Allie finds a homemade book left for her at Red Witch Rock that explains the truth about Simon as well as Jack’s siblings having died. Allie races to the house.

Meanwhile, Tom arrives at the house to collect his extortion money. Drawn by suspicious sounds, Tom takes a sledgehammer to the bricks blocking the attic door. Tom finds the corpses of Jane, Billy, and Sam. Simon attacks Tom.

Allie arrives at the house to find Jack speaking to himself as his other siblings. In Jane’s voice, Jack tells Allie they need her to take care of him. Allie shakes Jack out of his other personality. Jack shouts at Allie to leave “them” alone.

Allie investigates noises in the attic. Allie finds Tom with his throat slit. Simon confronts Allie. Allie screams for the siblings to help her.

Still embodying all of the children, Jack enters the attic and shoots Simon. Jack and Allie embrace.

12 Weeks Later – Allie visits a doctor who tells her he is pleased to hear that Jack has not shown any further signs of multiple personalities. The doctor also tries telling Allie that she could live a better life without Jack. The doctor gives Allie medication to take back to Jack.

Allie returns to Jack’s house, where she now lives. Allie stashes away the medication before gifting Jack with a framed photo of his siblings. It is revealed that Allie continues allowing Jack to believe his siblings are still with him.

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Review:

Desperate to escape the shadow of a “he” immediately presumed to be an abusive husband/father, Rose flees England with her family in search of a new life of anonymity.  She and her children Jack, Jane, Billy, and Sam, find it by changing their name to Marrowbone while hiding in Rose’s childhood home in remote American countryside.

Their plan for staying safe is simple.  With Rose on her deathbed, Jack must keep his siblings living in secret until he turns 21.  Complicating matters somewhat is a budding romance between Jack and a girl named Allie, who lives on a nearby farm.  Complicating things even further is the unexpected arrival of the aforementioned “he,” who shows up after Rose’s death to fire a rifle shot through a window.

“Marrowbone” immediately fast forwards six months.  There’s no indication how the conflict with the shooter was resolved, but the fresh scar on Jack’s forehead provides a big clue about blanks to be filled in later.  Jack, Jane, Billy, and Sam are close to fulfilling their family pact.  Only two obstacles stand in their way. One is a troublesome business agent, whose eyes for Allie are a secondary concern to his suspicions regarding Marrowbone family secrets.  The other involves odd noises in the attic and shrouds over every mirror, which purportedly protect the children from a ghost.

If not for a calendar identifying the year as 1969, and the vaguely mentioned location of rural America, one might swear “Marrowbone” was set in early 20thcentury England.  It isn’t just the accents of the British-born core cast either.

Maybe the Spanish production lost something in translation while establishing its era via costumes, props, and sets.  The watercolor illustration of the family arriving by steamship, Sam’s newsboy cap, and having Jack bike into town to buy groceries from a general store all suggest a setting other than the same summer when hippies descended on Woodstock and the Manson Family murdered Sharon Tate.  It’s an unusual potpourri of seemingly anachronistic inclusions establishing a visually indeterminate time and place.

“Marrowbone” also fashions its atmosphere like an Oscar-bait period piece.  The slow story develops with the patient speed of a Merchant Ivory melodrama, echoing the soap opera strings of a contemporary Bronte novel in film form.  With its romanticized panoramas, orchestral score, and scenes of young lovers kissing on a windswept beach, “Marrowbone” feels like a motion picture made for your mother’s book club to mull over with a glass of rosé and charcuterie spread.

That is, until corpse hands start lurching from the attic and white sheets rise into ghostly figures.  Elements of horror contribute to “Marrowbone’s” shape, though it is the family drama that distinctly defines it.  Scenes of suspense come from mostly low risk setups such as rushing to forge a signature before the wrong person sees or slowly creeping toward strange sounds. “Marrowbone’s” plot qualifies it as a thriller, but the film’s focus on stoking sadness built through sibling interactions largely disqualifies it as “thrilling.”

A non-provocative first hour and change finally increases energy for a moderately engaging finale, making the long slog to get there partially worth the price paid with disinterest.  The new trouble encountered lies in the fact that the first of two climactic revelations has featured in so many films before, it’s no longer a “twist.”  It’s a fully telegraphed expectation that even this movie’s careful editing can’t keep hidden for long.

Redeeming “Marrowbone’s” redundancy somewhat are several nice yet unexceptional performances from a few familiar faces.  George MacKay of “11/22/63” ably anchors the four siblings while Charlie Heaton (“Stranger Things”), Mia Goth (“A Cure for Wellness” - review here), and Matthew Stagg flesh out familial bonds in their limited minutes.  Anya Taylor-Joy of “The Witch” (review here) and “Split” (review here) also doesn’t appear often.  But when she does, her presence pulls eyes onto the screen instead of to the clock to wonder how much more “Marrowbone” remains before end credits.

Appreciators of gothic-style chillers where wardrobe and romance take center stage, “The Lodgers” (review here) being an example springing immediately to mind, may warm to “Marrowbone’s” room temperature tone of subdued spooks and subtle moods. Stylishly staged cinematography certainly has the capacity to cast such a spell.  Those angling for a fuller-bodied experience with more imaginative plot turns may find themselves asleep before the movie ever gets that that chance.

NOTE: “Marrowbone” is alternately titled “The Secret of Marrowbone.”

Review Score:  55

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