Stacey Gregg (director)
(studio)
83 (length)
04 February 2022 (released)
07 February 2022
The middle-class suburbs for many are an aspiration. A good house, schools, amenities and neighbours that you can get along with in short, the ideal community life though possibly idealistic.
Laura (Andrea Risborough) has had that life for years and when a little girl Megan (Niamh Dornan) introduces herself and asks a few questions about the house adjoined next door that she has moved into with her parents. Maybe odd but an introduction to a confident girl and a woman whom we detect as curious and apprehensive.
This is taken a step forward when picking up her son Tadgh (Lewis McAskie) Laura notices that Megan is on her own at the school gate, waiting for her mum. Laura is reluctant to pick up Megan for legal reasons but the youngster is persuasive.
What develops is a curious and unhealthy borderline obsession with Megan fuelled with her popping up in shopping malls and being invited to dinner by Laura, and Megan herself appearing to get closer to the family.
This starts to disturb Tadgh who seems to be picking up on his mother’s vibes. That his mother suspects that Megan could be the reincarnation of her daughter and sister Josie who died several years ago. This doesn’t go unnoticed by Megan’s parents Marie (Eileen O’Higgins) and Brendan (Martin McCann) who have their own problems and secret.
As much as this is a very good psychological thriller with supernatural overtones, it’s about societies. This happens to be set in Belfast, Northern Ireland but the scenario could be anywhere with hard-wired social pressures and attitudes that too easily lead to preconceptions. Laura, although clearly getting more disturbed as the film goes on, has an intrinsic prejudice that drives her decisions to pick Megan up and later take her places without Marie’s permission.
Risborough is enthralling as Laura; a mother who had thought she’d grieved for her daughter but it appears to be only skin deep. A trauma like that is probably always going to be close to the surface with something to trigger it. Risborough is also dangerously on the edge for much of the film as the viewer comes to understand her grief but then also disturbed by her behaviour towards Megan and the others.
Stacey Gregg as writer and director however doesn’t overegg either the supernatural or the social commentary. Instead concentrates on telling a tight and cohesive story that slowly develops the families then drawing out their deep flaws.
Here Before was presented at the Final Girls Berlin Film Festival 2022
