Benjamin Finkel's childhood inspired his emotionally painful story of a young girl whose father is dying.
is based on a cruel reality: a young girl’s well-founded dread of her father dying. In his self-assured first film, writer and directorwraps this fear in horror tropes, taking us inside the mind of a child imagining the worst. The film becomes increasingly tense and emotionally wrenching, even as Finkel ramps up genre touches that come to feel superfluous.
Johanna is a lonely 11-year-old whose family has moved to another part of the country so her father can receive better cancer treatment. Finkel’s director’s statement makes it clear that this is a personal story, inspired by what he felt when his father suffered from cancer for much of Finkel’s childhood. Echoing that experience, the film is almost entirely from Johanna’s point of view.
Elisha Christian’s cinematography deftly signals the difference between the clarity of real life and the darker tones of Johanna’s imagined scenes. And Olivia Peebles’ production design enhances the unnerving tone, in a perfectly comfortable large old house that can suddenly turn ominous. Even the props are just right, that odd little blue birdhouse looking claustrophobic enough to be unsettling. Finkel’s screenplay is minimalist, as he wisely relies on images.
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