Things Heard and Scene Review: Netflix brings us the strangest horror story of 2021

Look a little deeper about any decent haunted house movie, and you’ll almost always see a story about people who get stuck with some big aspect of their lives. Horror-movie heroes dealing with an evil doll can at least try to get rid of it; Slasher victims can at least try to run away from danger. And people are threatened by something that they do not understand, whether it is a curse or a creature, can always investigate and try to come to terms with the unknown. But a house represents a commitment, a sunk cost that is very difficult to walk away from. A new genre of horror-drama in a film like Netflix Hear and see thingsThe haunted house is more a metaphor for a metaphorical device, a symbol of a place that should be a warm, protective home, but not so and a symbol of a commitment that is difficult to escape. And as a metaphor, it is the most coherent and compelling thing in a bizarre tangled film.

Amanda Seyfried and The never‘James Norton Starr as Catherine and George Claire, a married couple raising a 4-year-old daughter, Franny, in Manhattan in 1980. Catherine has a satisfying job as an expert art restorer, but when George announces to his friends that he has finished his dissertation and is offered a teaching job at a private college in New York, So he humbly leaves his career, without any complaints. The close friend that he supports George. There is clearly something wrong with Catherine’s life, noting that she is starving herself and forcing herself to vomit what she eats, and even quickly, as she Flowers in, for example, George chose his new home in the small town. Put pressure on her when she shows token resistance.

It turns out that he is right to be disqualified from his stubbornness at home: some trepidation has been observed at this place, and there is an active supernatural presence. A slow-burning ghost story that begins according to normal haunted-house rules, at least in most cases: electric lights flicker, Frankie sees a mysterious female figure in her room, objects around the house. She goes without touching, and so on. But one thing that is immediately unusual Hear and see things It is that Catherine does not seem particularly unworthy of clarity or implications. She immediately begins to sympathize with the ghost of the house, and when George’s boss Floyd (F. Morena Abraham, always delightful) gives her his warm and supportive theories on spirituality, she is immediately in favor of a grief – A disgusting cynic, along with George, is not uniquely invited.

Hear and see things, Is based on Elizabeth Brundage’s 2016 novel All things stop showing, Making up most of its runtime from an entirely traditional relationship drama to an unconventional ghost story. Catherine and George’s marriage looks like an equally horrifying relationship in Sean Durkin. home

With a reasonable percentage of Genius mr replay Sprinkled in, he is a liar and a cheat who blames her choice on his behavior. Meanwhile, she is telling him about her eating disorder, and reveals how pathetic she is, while also passive-aggressively finding reasons for her to be ruthless. Are other people at home drawn to their struggle and their outrage – or possibly feeding it? This is one of those things that is clearly unclear until the vague, baffling ending.

The way the narrative collapses is a particular shame, because for the most part, the film is a compelling melodrama, an “elevated horror” story that limits cheap jitters and jump scares, and for them they Transforms by its unusual rules. Supernatural. As one visitor tells Catherine, evil spirits are only drawn to the bad guys, meaning that as long as she is not giving herself evil, the ghost trying to make contact with her is a kind and altruistic one. . In this particular fantasy, the ghosts are particularly drawn to those who mirror them in some ways, and Catherine’s ghost may respond to her troubled marriage.

The story is somewhat top-notch as the unexpected unfolds, but perfectly connecting a supernatural horror story with a monotonous matrimonial drama, with writer-directors Sherry Springer Burman and Robert PulciniAmerican splendor, the nanny Diaries) Kill some fresh energy in both styles, and keep them away from normal predictable structures. Entertaining as haunted house movies like their house, Magical, Echoes echoes, And even O.G. Poltergeist Were, and as much as they play with the idea of ​​being tied to one place and scared at the same time, they all follow a pattern of escalation that mostly “keeps creepy ghosts creepy.” Hear and see things Bypassing that expectation will only benefit.

But the Marshall Drama does not take away from the somewhat familiar streets, as Burman and Pulkini never fully connect with the way Katherine feels tied to the house, and the way she feels tied to her flamboyant marriage. She does. Seafried gives her some presence and appeal, but she never has any agency as a character. Catherine begins to get beaten up by factors that are never fully explained: does her eating disorder mean as a clue to her relationship under stress, or does it mean her sense of energy and attention? Have to give up the excuse of deficiency? Are there solid reasons why she is afraid to oppose George, or does her obedience come from her family history or personality? Who exactly is that? As possible answers begin to come into focus, and as she learns more about who George really is, he takes less action, withdrawing into a snide, petulant inaction that is compelling into a protagonist. Is not, and it only serves as a narrative, dragging it on longer may make George go even farther.

And then there is the laughable final sequence, which not only makes the audience believe that the film’s invented rules for the supernatural have been completely internalized, but that many of them can be even more different. Furthermore, it assumes that they are going to be ready to go along with ridiculous and inappropriate incidents, as long as they feel like justice, at least to some extent. The ending is an adventure drama in a film full of bold plays, but it is designed to make the discussion more so than pulling the narrative together, or proposing a horror-movie catharsis or wedding-drama to the audience. Haunted-house films are usually about people stuck in one place, and lack any good options to get away. Hear and see things That trend continues, and for much of its time, it makes Catherine’s inability to run into a memorable puzzle. But at the same time the film’s ending collapse is inevitable, and when it goes down, it carries with it all the accumulated goodwill of the film.

Hear and see things Now streaming on Netflix.