Studio: The Collective
Director: Lucky McKee
Writer: Jack Ketchum, Lucky McKee
Producer: Andrew van den Houten, Robert Tonino
Stars: Pollyanna McIntosh, Sean Bridgers, Angela Bettis, Lauren Ashley Carter, Carlee Baker, Alexa Marcigliano, Zach Rand, Shyla Molhusen
Review Score:
Summary:
A fractured family gradually unravels after the father secretly imprisons a feral woman under the pretense of civilizing her.
Review:
The Cleeks looks like an average suburban family, even though they live in a rural countryside home. Husband/father Chris works as an attorney at an office in town. Wearing a shaky smile to mask her meekness, housewife Belle would fit right in as June Cleaver’s neighbor. Peggy mopes in a hoodie and earbuds like a typical teenager. Adolescent son Brian shoots hoops in the yard. Youngest daughter Darlin’ cutely plays K-pop while licking cake batter off mom’s baking beater.
You’d never know there’s a feral woman chained in the family’s cellar, and all of them are in on the secret.
‘The Woman’ is the only known survivor from a clan of cave-dwelling cannibals last seen terrorizing a family in the 2009 thriller “Offspring” (review here). Chris stumbled upon her while hunting, imprisoned her in shackles, and compelled his submissive wife and children to participate in a perverted pet project to “civilize” an animalistic human.
For an ordinary family, the prospect of caring for a chained captive would come as a revolting shock. But the Cleeks already sit on a powder keg of problems preoccupying clouded minds. Peggy doesn’t know how to handle her unexpected pregnancy. Chris regularly renews Belle’s subservience using his fists. Watching his father berate, bemoan, and beat the ladies in his life has brewed enmity inside Brian that he’s anxious to finally externalize. Then there’s the unspoken matter of another sinful shame hidden in the dog pen outside.
The fuse of dysfunction has been burning for as long as they’ve been a family. The presence of the Woman has only accelerated an explosion poised to irrevocably alter The Cleeks.
Co-writer/director Lucky McKee’s dark drama may have a singular title in “The Woman,” though it is very much an ensemble movie. Its strange setup walks a tightrope over inconceivable implausibility. But the film’s stunning starkness never falters because these particular actors impressively use every inch of each environment, internal emotion, and external conflict to put full minds, bodies, and souls into completely convincing characters.
Perfect casting trickles down from the top. It’s atypical to put someone in the role of a domineering patriarch whose physical presence isn’t instantly identified as an alpha male archetype. Perhaps that’s part of why Sean Bridgers works so well as Chris, adding an inferiority complex underneath composed aggression. The smaller stature with subdued smolder containing Chris’ controlling personality curiously comes across as infinitely more dangerous than the relatively tame threat of a muscular meathead with a mustache.
Angela Bettis and Lauren Ashley Carter delicately balance seesaws that never tilt an inch. Belle and Peggy effuse demure complacency while concurrently projecting rebellious resilience held in reserve for when respective time-bombs stop ticking. Both women lay backstories bare using dour expressions, yet never over-explain by dropping eyes or frowns too low.
“The Woman” chews on challenging commentary about toxic masculinity and antiquated gender roles through a story that’s unflinchingly bitter, tense, and brutal. And yet even when the film feels like it forces you to witness terrible acts as though toothpicks are tenting your eyelids, so much of the styling seething beneath the surface is sold with subtlety.
Drops, not a downpour, spin Brian deeper into his father’s footsteps. We see Brian dismissively failing to act when bigger boys bully a little girl. We see Brian exact revenge on a female classmate who beat him at basketball by putting bubblegum in her hairbrush. Explanations sit out in the open, but come via moments that don’t hit the audience like condescending freight trains.
When Chris shows his family the Woman for the first time, Peggy asks through a slightly dropped jaw, “what is this?” It’s telling that the three words she chooses are not “what is that?” or “who is this?” Peggy isn’t necessarily interested in the obvious, which should be the person in chains before her. Peggy instead addresses the insanity of the situation, whether anyone hears her or not.
Meanwhile, Brian ogles the Woman with the same pubescent fascination Ralphie directed toward his Old Man’s leg lamp. For him, the Woman unmistakably remains an object.
Deliberate details continually build out the weird world of “The Woman,” often in intangible ways. It’s not a coincidence that the Woman bites off Chris’ ring finger. Outfitting Chris in a tailored suit and nice watch while having his wife hand roll his cigarettes also says something specific about him as a person.
“The Woman” captures an awful atmosphere with such striking vitality, you can be convinced that an outwardly unassuming man could hold a woman against her will while his family stands silent. Not solely out of fear, but because their skewed views have been warped by ugly conditioning. To them, such circumstances are part of everyday normalcy, which makes the haze over everyone’s heads all the more horrifying.
Even an anachronistic use of the word “strumpet” intentionally evokes a strange streak suited to the unusual tone. The same goes for scoring certain scenes with a pop rock soundtrack in lieu of orchestral music. Rooting itself in relatable realism gives “The Woman” the feel of an ordinary movie when its story is anything but.
It’s haunting. It’s disturbing. It’s uncomfortable without being unbearable. “The Woman” gets to be all of these things through the powerful strength of exceptional writing, acting, mood, and direction. This is visual storytelling at its finest, even if the horror story being told is a difficult one to stomach.
NOTE: There is a post-credits scene.
Review Score: 90
It is moderately compelling in the moment, but it has a hard time holding up to even cursory scrutiny as far as believable “found footage” concepts go.