SUNDANCE REVIEW: David Bruckner’s The Night House
Claire gives Beth a casserole in an aluminum tray. She knows her friend is drowning, but they’re not close enough where she can insist to intervene, so she resorts to a clichéd but sincere gesture. Beth is staying in that big cabin all alone, surrounded by memories and it seems wrong. What is she going to do? The casserole is more than food; it is a life preserver. The casserole says I want to take care of you, the disposable tray says I don’t want to put anything on you, and the subtext is, “if you need someone to hold on to, you can hold on to me.” Beth is not in a casserole place, okay? Directly following the funeral, Beth goes back to work. She goes out for drinks with her coworkers, and when Claire tries to protect her from their prying questions. Beth dismisses. Beth doesn’t relate to Claire’s sympathy, she relates to her coworkers’ curiosity. They have questions and so does she.
‘Til death do us part’ is generally considered the finish line to a successful marriage, but Owen (Evan Jonigkeit) left Beth (Rebecca Hall) with a blatant exception.The Night House is about a wife faced with the sudden death of her husband as she attempts to pack up and leave their once idyllic, lakeside cabin he built for them. In the shadow of Owen’s death, his belongings begin to look like keys to unlocking a dark secret he kept from her. Claire (Sarah Goldberg) becomes concerned for her friend’s mental and emotional well being, but Beth cannot be deterred. Beth is starved for revelation, so perhaps the visions she is having are delirium, but to her they are irresistible. Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski‘s screenplay judiciously doles out morsels of information that whet your curiosity and reward you if you lean in closely enough.
When we first see the lake house, it feels familiar and lived in with wedding pictures on the walls and crumpled tissues on the nightstand. Beth begins to lose herself in her own home as she tries to untangle the threads her husband left behind for her. It is the soundscape that will initially put you on edge as you’re lured into the mystery – your intense focus suddenly snapped by a sound that is shockingly and unbearably loud. Beth, addled with mourning, begins to see Owen everywhere and in everything. The Night House begins to transform in an ominous, unsettling way that will have you questioning your own eyes. Director David Bruckner pays homage to the genre by luring you into the supernatural horror element using recognizable tropes but then broadening the enigma by using innovative visuals that will have you looking deeply into dark corners, afraid of what you might see.
When Claire realizes that Beth is obsessing over the circumstances that resulted in Owen’s death, she pleads with her to focus on preserving his memory, as she believed it to be – the dutiful husband and partner for 14 years – and to stop her investigation. But Claire isn’t looking for comfort. That is what the brown liquor is for. Because of what Beth has been through, she understands that Claire can no longer relate to her and therefore does not have a perspective that is of any use. Rebecca Hall gives Beth an implacable intensity as she barrels through any advice to slow down, back off, and stop digging. The film doesn’t give away what Beth was like before her husband died, only that she is different. Now she is grief-stricken, cagey, and not nice. She is both scared and scary. Hall’s integrity of performance will keep you engrossed and committed to Beth even as you no longer like her.
The query that drives The Night House is about closure; is it really worthwhile in the end? Like Claire, when we see someone in crisis, our instinct is to distract and deflect from the pain and the sorrow, but for Beth her inclination is to charge headlong into it and confront it. What burns more – the not knowing or the truth? David Bruckner has proven, with The Signal and The Ritual, that he has the cinematic virtuosity to orchestrate dread and fear. With The Night House he delivers a story that challenges your empathy while he continues to inventively and diabolically subvert your expectations. It is inevitable that each of us will find ourselves at either the giving or receiving end of a casserole. The Night House points us to the realisation that while the gesture is right, it may not be what’s wanted or needed.
Searchlight Pictures acquired The Night House during the Sundance Film Festival and is planning to release it globally in theaters this year.
