Sebastian Goodwin (director)
(studio)
18 (certificate)
71 (length)
11 March 2022 (released)
12 March 2022
It must be one of the most nerve-racking moments for newlyweds with children from a previous marriage: meeting them. This is what is foremost in Holly’s (Aisling Loftus) mind as she is being driven by Richard (Tom Goodman-Hill) to see his three offspring, who don’t know he has remarried. There are the usual reassurances from him though the fact that they are driving into the middle of nowhere isn’t very.
The house when the get there is empty until the children Anna (Rafiella Chapman), Ralph (Lukas Rolfe) and Lucia (Hattie Gotobed) turn up and it’s a happy reunion as it’s for Anna’s birthday. The children’s mother Nina however is not there and terse message tells them she’s not going to be. Not surprisingly there’s tension between the kids and Holly which isn’t dissipated by a family ritual that involves the slaughter of a goose that they gleefully partake in leaving their stepmother horrified.
Needless to say Richard is annoyed and the older two take on more antagonistic tone. It’s a tricky situation which Holly just wants to leave but Richard doesn’t want to and he getting more and more sinister. The visit is falling apart around Holly, though no chance of leaving early, she begins to rummage around, when the family go off for a swim and uncovers a number of items that suggest there’s a lot more to them than they are letting on.
In some sense this is a pretty familiar story and plot though it is buoyed by director and writer Sebastian Godwin’s use of atmospherics. He infuses a very creepy atmosphere making excellent use of sound and composition to create a very strange unreality about the home and surrounding grounds.
The three younger actors are too very good coming over as sinister bordering on nasty though not getting carried away the latter. Which works well with Goodman-Hill in a role that does require extremes of behaviour and Loftus as the wife and step-mother who just can’t do anything right.
