THE FRONT ROOM (2024)

Studio:   A24
Director: Max Eggers, Sam Eggers
Writer:   Max Eggers, Sam Eggers
Producer: David Hinojosa, Julia Oh, Lucan Toh, Babak Anvari
Stars:    Brandy Norwood, Andrew Burnap, Neal Huff, Kathryn Hunter, Mary Testa, Mary Catherine Wright, David Manis, Ellen J. Maddow

Review Score:

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Summary:

A pregnant couple's lives are turned upside down when the husband's manipulative stepmother moves into their home.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Anthropology professor Belinda questions becoming a mother as her pregnancy compromises her teaching job, which she ultimately quits out of frustration. Belinda's husband Norman Irwin, a public defender, is simultaneously distracted by work, and the couple's financial struggles are problematic.

Upon learning his father died of stomach cancer, Norman and Belinda attend the funeral. Norman cautions Belinda about his elderly stepmother Solange, who believes the Holy Spirit possesses her and used her religious beliefs and narrow worldview to foster an abusive household where Norman grew up. After the service, Pastor Lewis takes the couple to meet Solange while she is surrounded by a devout prayer group laying hands on her because she supposedly has healing powers.

Solange offers to turn over all of her wealth to Norman and Belinda in exchange for living out her final time in their house. Despite Norman's reticence, Belinda convinces him to agree because they need the money.

As her first step in gradually taking over control of the household, Solange insists on living in the downstairs front room that was intended to be the nursery. Belinda notices Solange's keepsake United Daughters of the Confederacy certificate, which becomes the first sign of Solange's passive-aggressive racism and contentious condescension.

Over dinner, Belinda reveals she plans to name her baby Fern. Solange starts speaking in tongues. When she finishes, Solange tells Belinda the baby should be named Laurie after her grandfather. Belinda is surprised when Solange also mentions Wallace, which was the name of her infant son who died, and Solange should have no way of knowing about.

Belinda experiences a disturbing vision involving her unborn baby while sleepwalking. Solange later tells her she knows Belinda is seeing things.

Solange pisses herself. Despite Solange's request to keep it a secret, Belinda tells Norman about her incontinence, which infuriates Solange. Solange later defecates in her bed. While Norman carries her to a bathtub, Solange smiles at Belinda, indicating she did it on purpose.

Belinda gives birth to Laurie. Upon returning home with the baby, Belinda is upset to see Solange redecorated the entire house. Belinda is additionally upset to be greeted by the old man and two old women from Belinda's prayer circle, who suddenly place their hands on Belinda's stomach while speaking in tongues. Belinda angrily kicks the trio out of the house. Belinda continues growing angry when she learns Norman knew about the redecoration, which included replacing her fertility statues with Norman's father's urn, and he also agreed to the prayer group's presence in exchange for new furniture.

Belinda and Solange get into a heated argument during dinner over Solange's casual racism and devoutly Christian beliefs. Belinda knocks Solange to the ground after she throws a pretend tantrum. Solange bends over and farts at Belinda.

Belinda notices her C-section scar healing faster than expected. Solange claims she had a daughter who died who is now with Belinda's dead son Wallace. Belinda also claims Wallace wants Belinda to know Solange healed her belly, and he supposedly warns that she needs to "cast out the bad one."

Belinda calls out Solange's racism by confronting her with the United Daughters of the Confederacy certificate. Solange tells Belinda she can tear up the certificate if Belinda agrees to accept the cross necklace she previously placed on one of Belinda's statues. Belinda and Norman are both stunned to see fussy Laurie stops crying whenever the necklace is near her.

Solange spreads feces all over the house, causing Belinda to call Norman to come home immediately. Belinda sees a vision of Solange as the Virgin Mary with six breasts preparing to feed the baby. Solange tells Belinda she is not Laurie's mother. Solange then slams her head on a table to make it look as though Belinda bloodied her face. Norman walks in on the scene and questions who is telling the truth about what happened.

Belinda continues growing frustrated that Laurie won't attach to her and that Solange is becoming more of a nuisance. She also has a vision of Norman suckling his stepmother's breast.

Norman accuses Belinda of injuring Laurie when he finds a bite wound on her arm. Belinda explains Solange has been faking an inability to get up the stairs, and it was really her who hurt the baby. Suspecting she also lied about a dead daughter, Norman confronts Solange to ask if she has been deliberately turning Belinda and him against each other. Solange spits in Norman's face when he threatens to kick her out of the house.

The following morning, Laurie finally begins breastfeeding from Belinda. Belinda goes downstairs to discover Solange dead in her bed. Belinda changes her house back following Solange's cremation, and fantasizes about running her car over Solange's remaining mementos, which include a pink chair that previously belonged to Norman's biological mother.

One year later, Norman and Belinda move into a new house as Belinda begins a new professorship while pregnant with twins. Content with their happy lives, Belinda forces Norman to throw out the pink chair that reminds her of Solange. A flashback reveals Belinda actually smothered Solange with a pillow.

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Review:

Movie posters that mainly feature a star's head typically don't tell you much about the film. Not so with "The Front Room." Its plain poster tells you everything.

Take a look at the artwork where Brandy's face occupies most of the box. She's not smiling. She's not scowling. She's not sweating. She doesn't really have any expression at all. Not shock. Not anger. Not wickedness. Just a lot of jewelry in her ear. The only hint of horror comes from a shadow on a door shrunk into a lower corner. Astonishingly, this is a pitch perfect image for "The Front Room" because it accurately reflects the film's curiously low energy and curiouser inability to convey anything close to a consistent, distinctive tone.

Since director Robert Eggers made his name in genre entertainment with projects like "The Witch" (review here) and "Nosferatu," it stands to reason his half-brothers Max and Sam Eggers, who wrote and directed "The Front Room," might be inclined to follow in his fright film footsteps. That's how A24, another notable name in macabre thrillers, chose to market their movie, too.

Although horrific things happen, "The Front Room" isn't chiefly a horror film by traditional definitions or expectations. It's designed to be a black comedy, except it's not that dark, and not all that amusing, either.

Based on a short story by Susan Hill, "The Front Room" beats two dead horses with one whip by combining the "wicked stepmother" and "in-law from Hell" archetypes into a single cliched characterization. Brandy Norwood plays Belinda, a pregnant woman worried about motherhood after already losing one child in his infancy. Andrew Burnap plays her husband Norman, probably named as such to emphasize his milquetoast normality as an unremarkable sidekick whose existence Belinda occasionally remembers. She's an anthropology professor and he's an attorney, yet somehow they're in dire financial straits usually exclusive to less affluent families with deadbeat parents or unemployment problems.

Belinda sees a solution to their money struggles following the death of Norman's father. Norman hasn't seen his stepmother Solange in years. He warns his wife that Solange's religious beliefs, which include a claim of being possessed by the Holy Spirit, created an abusive household growing up, and he worries about inviting that into their home. But Solange strikes a bargain. She'll turn over every penny of her wealth in exchange for living out whatever time she has left with her stepson's growing family. They don't say no.

As Solange, Kathryn Hunter puts on an uneven performance that vacillates between completely convincing and obnoxiously cartoonish. The obnoxious part is arguably intentional. Solange's schtick involves being passive-aggressively racist and casually condescending in that "Who me? What are you talking about?" way where seniors defend problematic worldviews as merely being old-fashioned. Some of the cartoonishness may be intentional too, like Solange farting in Belinda's face to put an exclamation point on an argument. Put the two together though, and you end up needlessly needled by Hunter's exaggerated Southern drawl and saucer-sized eyes rocketing her to a totally different planet than the other two actors.

Title cards with peppy classical music accented by a warbling theremin sound suggest "The Front Room" might be a blend of off-kilter humor in sophisticated settings. That seems to be what the Eggers brothers intended, yet their movie gets mired in such a bland malaise of repetitive tedium, attempts to spice up scenery with visual shocks come across as desperate against a backdrop too boring to validate the campiness. In between repeated scenes of contentious dinner table conversations, Solange uses her incontinence to put pee puddles on furniture and spread feces on walls. There's even an entire montage of discolored clumps being flushed down toilets for those who can't get enough scat-related silliness. Then there are Belinda's strange visions, like seeing her grown husband suckling at his stepmother's shriveled breast, or Solange sprouting six such breasts while robed as the Virgin Mary to feed Belinda's baby.

The longer "The Front Room" holds on that single note of "isn't Solange awful," the more it becomes clear there isn't a meaningful message motivating Belinda's misery. The push-pull drama of Norman initially balking at Solange's presence, then Norman questioning Belinda's believability about the bad things his stepmother does behind his back, doesn't demand engagement any more than the inconclusive implication over which of the two women has the higher capacity for manipulation. When the film finally ends on an unsurprising reveal, various pieces have moved back to their original or to improved positions, furthering an "it was all a dream" notion where nothing that happened ever materially mattered anyway.

From my seat as someone who has already memory holed most of the movie in less time than required to watch it, "The Front Room's" primary objective appears to be to get on an audience's nerves as much as Solange tries getting on Belinda's. Maybe that's the real joke hidden in the movie's supposed humor. Too bad it comes at the viewer's expense.

Review Score: 35

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