THE SONATA (2018)

Studio:      Screen Media Films
Director:    Andrew Desmond
Writer:      Andrew Desmond, Arthur Morin
Producer:  Sergey Selyanov, Genny Goudard, Daniel Goroshko, Alexander Skladchikov, Rodolphe Sanze, Laurent Fumeron, Fabrice Smadja, Julien Loeffler, Aija Berzina, Alise Gelze
Stars:     Freya Tingley, Simon Abkarian, James Faulkner, Rutger Hauer

Review Score:

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Summary:

An eccentric composer’s sudden suicide thrusts his estranged daughter into a musical mystery involving a secret sonata imbued with black magic.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Violin virtuoso Rose Fisher and her agent Charles Vernais learn Rose’s estranged father committed suicide by setting himself on fire. Charles is shocked to discover Rose’s father was Richard Marlowe, a celebrated composer who notoriously turned into an eccentric recluse. Rose and Charles fight over their strained professional relationship when Rose decides to postpone her commitments in order to visit the remote French estate she inherited from her father.

At Marlowe’s mansion, Rose briefly meets her father’s former housekeeper Therese. When she goes into town to buy cigarettes later, store patrons stare strangely at Rose upon learning who her father was.

Rose finds sheet music for a seemingly unfinished violin sonata locked inside her father’s desk. Rose notices strange occult symbols on the pages. A demonic shape briefly appears behind Rose when she plays part of the music on a piano.

Rose calls Charles to apologize. She also tells Charles about the sonata and sends him pictures of the pages to see if he can make sense of the symbols.

A haunting presence and childlike voice draw Rose back to the music room. Rose discovers a clock with a mark matching one of the sonata symbols.

Recognizing the sonata as Marlowe’s final masterpiece, Charles shows the piece to former client and musical prodigy James. James observes that the music is barely coherent in certain places. Unable to decipher the score further, James refers Charles to music historian Sir Victor Ferdinand, who used to work with Marlowe.

After examining the pages, Victor shows Charles a book on occult history. Victor links the strange symbols to a French secret society that believed music allowed mortals to communicate with the devil and that they could conjure the antichrist by using music to open an otherworldly portal. Charles begins suffering from intermittent headaches after Victor plays a portion of the score on his piano.

Rose finds a collection of newspaper clippings about her musical success that Marlowe kept. She also finds one of the occult symbols etched inside the fireplace when the flames burn hot. Rose then suffers from a nightmarish vision in which her burning father points toward a living statue of two cherubs outside.

Charles arrives at the estate. Charles tells Rose about the French secret sect by identifying the four symbols as representing the four faces of evil: power, immortality, appearance, and duality. Together they form a fifth symbol of evil, which is also the symbol of the occult order.

Rose shows Charles the symbols she found on the clock and in the fireplace. From those clues, Rose and Charles heat the sheet music, which reveals hidden music notes. They also conclude that the score must be played out of time since Marlowe’s clock was an hour behind.

At Rose’s suggestion, Charles meets with Therese to find out if Marlowe’s housekeeper saw any other symbols inside the mansion. Therese mentions seeing one of the symbols behind a mirror, spurring Charles to conclude the music must be played backwards. Therese also mentions that Marlowe used to disappear into the woods for long periods of time and that townspeople suspected him in the disappearances of local children.

Rose finds an old chapel hidden in the woods. Stairs lead Rose to an underground chamber where she discovers a mural depicting a demon, torture tools, and audio tapes of Marlowe murdering children to record their specific screams.

Rose encounters several ghost children in the forest on her way back to the mansion. Rose tells Charles what she found. With Charles growing increasingly insistent about decoding the sonata, Rose shows him the duality symbol discovered earlier on the cherub twin statue outside. The clue reveals that the sheet music pages must be overlaid on top of each other.

Charles finds the fifth and final symbol painted into a rose on a portrait of Marlowe. With the sonata deciphered, Charles explains that Marlowe wrote the score specifically for his daughter Rose because he needed her pure soul to play the piece, which was partly composed from the kidnapped children’s screams.

Determining the music to be evil, Rose goes to burn the pages and call the police. Overcome with obsession, Charles chokes Rose before forcing her to play the sonata.

Rose’s eyes begin glowing as she plays her violin. Four ghost children materialize in the room. A demonic entity appears and kills Charles. The windows shatter when Rose plays the final note. Therese finds Charles’ dead body the next day.

Some time later at the Royal London Concert Hall, Victor attends a recital featuring Rose. Rose’s eyes glow from possession as she begins playing the sonata in front of an audience.

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Review:

Violin virtuoso Rose Fisher never knew her estranged father. The music world did though. Rose’s father was none other than celebrated composer Richard Marlowe. Once prophesized to be the savior of British classical music, Marlowe achieved more notoriety when he became an eccentric recluse and disappeared so suddenly that many presumed he died.

Marlowe is definitively dead now. He saw to it by painfully setting himself on fire outside his remote French chateau, which Rose just inherited. Over the objections of her obsessive agent Charles, Rose decides to take a hiatus from her professional responsibilities as a musical prodigy to dig into the complicated legacy her father left behind.

What Rose discovers is a seemingly unfinished sonata locked away in Marlowe’s mansion. Possibly the mad genius’ last masterpiece, the sheet music includes cryptic symbols Rose and Charles eventually link to an obscure secret society.

This occult order believed music to be the only true means of communicating with the devil. Marlowe appears to have bought into their belief that music could open portals to other worlds, as his unusual composition contains haunting qualities experts are unable to explain. To reveal the full mystery of what Marlowe was really up to, Rose and Charles must connect clues cleverly hidden across the estate. Little do they know that if they succeed in decoding Marlowe’s strange sonata, they could unleash literal Hell on Earth.

As I write this review of “The Sonata,” “The Grudge” 2020 has made some noise in genre social circles for being one of only about a dozen horror films to receive an ‘F’ CinemaScore from audiences. Critics and journalists who are more bullish on the flick contend that moviegoers graded “The Grudge” against unreasonable expectations for a reinvention of the wheel. They don’t argue that the film may be formulaic. But they suggest “The Grudge” is perfectly fine for an average fright film, which is where the majority of movies land on a critical scale anyway.

I haven’t seen “The Grudge” 2020 yet, but I agree with the general sentiment expressed by its supporters. Oftentimes, routine horror films are an interminable drag. Other times however, when tempered anticipation accurately aligns with the reality of how “good” most B-movies are, a mid-tier motion picture works well for an evening’s entertainment.

While that notion can have the ring of only faint praise, it summarizes “The Sonata” in a manner I mean to be flattering. Due to its straightforward simplicity, “The Sonata” won’t make big waves, and isn’t likely to be popularly regarded as time goes on. By that same token, it’s still a satisfyingly serviceable little thriller that doesn’t deserve to disappear down a whirlpool of dismissiveness just because it is relatively ordinary either.

“The Sonata” has some hiccups, sure. Freya Tingley’s mousy demeanor lacks the assertiveness to really arrest attention as Rose. But Simon Abkarian features more prominently as her manager Charles anyway, and his maturely measured performance capably replaces some of the protagonist divots cut by Tingley.

Rutger Hauer fans should be cautioned that the late actor appears only sparingly, and never with another person. Mumbles marring his dialogue also indicate Hauer’s health may have been declining while filming his brief scenes as Marlowe, one of his final roles.

As usual for slow burn suspense, “The Sonata” becomes an enemy of impatience. Yet as mostly a mood movie, “The Sonata” fortunately looks so good that your eyes rarely wander away from the screen, even if mental engagement does. Thanks to its spooky shooting location (Cesvaine Palace in Latvia), the film drapes a gorgeously gothic, “Dark Shadows” vibe over every shadowed corner of its unsettling setting. Haunting music coolly complements the quietly demonic atmosphere too.

Strange creative choices, such as filming the first scene from a first-person perspective where the audience plays Rutger Hauer drinking wine, looking in a mirror, and walking outside, keep staging from becoming stale. Plus, I appreciate the unusualness of such techniques, even when I don’t understand why the camera bothers to perch overhead for a shot of piano playing, or cuts to big close-ups of pill bottles and watch winding. Behind-the-scenes efforts at least go beyond by-the-book basics.

Sketchy CGI and an underwhelming final few moments sprain the ending’s ankle as it hops to a somewhat weak conclusion. But the international flavors, occult intrigue, and overall eeriness maintain a solid buildup. As already indicated, although “The Sonata” doesn’t charge authoritatively like an earth-shaking juggernaut, it nevertheless gets the job done as a competently casual creeper.

Review Score: 60

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