Gretel & Hansel

She hopes to seek her own way forward. Deeply suspicious of kind gestures she instinctively knows there’s always a catch. Good deeds are never just one-way acts of benevolence. Something is always expected in return. Warm appearances hide nefarious secret agendas.

With her boyish, neatly cropped haircut and modest attire, 16-year-old Gretel sticks out instantly for her rebellious appearance. But it’s hard to be truly independent when everyone is demanding you follow their lead.

As played by the appealing Sophia Lillis (the It series), she is smart, hyper-observant and protective of her 8-year-old brother Hansel (Sam Leakey in his first feature), especially after their troubled, widowed mother banishes them from the family home.

Wandering the lush Irish forest in search of food during a widespread famine, they find temporary refuge in a seemingly abandoned abode. But the second they lay down for the night, a screaming demon, a spooky motherfucker, makes his presence known. Hate when that happens.

Fleeing in terror, they are miraculously rescued by a Black Savior (Charles Babalola), a hunter who conveniently offers them refuge, food and good advice in the nick of time. Follow this path I’ve laid out for you so you can meet up with some foresters but steer clear of charming strangers, they are wolves in disguise. Gretel is stunned at his genuine concern. He’s surprisingly not a creepo at all. No quid pro quo demanded. But he too wants nothing more to do with them.

Back to starving out in the wild again, they come across some peculiar mushrooms which don’t fill their empty tummies so much but do give them a decent trip. Desperate for any kind of sustainable grub, they ultimately find what they’re looking for. Gretel’s well-honed survival instincts will serve her well going forward but they take a while to fully kick in.

Alice Krige, the Mama Borg from Star Trek: First Contact, delivers one of her finest performances as a seemingly benign elderly lady who just happens to have an intoxicating spread worthy of a family Thanksgiving all laid out on her dining room table every day of the week. Hansel finds it irresistible. Gretel is not completely on board.

In the meantime, she becomes a willing student of the dark arts but only up to a point. Nevertheless, the two siblings have found a new home.

Something is off, though. Krige is an odd duck. She has an unhealthy fascination with Hansel. And while she allows Gretel to do basic chores, she’d much rather encourage her to bring out her magical gifts.

Presented as a cautionary tale, Gretel & Hansel, a deliberate inversion of the original title of the famous Grimm story, ironically the character in most need of proceeding with caution isn’t the teen girl or even the young boy. It’s actually the witch played by Krige.

Thinking she’s found her very own protege Krige makes a major misstep. Gretel & Hansel are inseparable. When the boy goes missing, his big sister wants answers. Her fierce loyalty is unquestioning. Instead of successfully turning them against each other, Krige foolishly gives her the tools to defeat her. What a mistake to have that forked staff lying around. Never teach a young Jedi mind tricks. They will fuck you up.

Gretel’s curiosity about that mysterious door cleverly concealed behind the closet ultimately solves several mysteries in a single scene once she maneuvers her way inside.

The missing Hansel is found in a trance-like state in a cellar with a high ceiling and his sister can’t break the spell. Krige is actually a much younger woman with a personal connection to a story Gretel is obsessed with. And, well, sometimes it’s not a good idea to know how the sausage is made. When those unsightly contents are dumped out of that barrel, holy shit, what a creepy feeling. Gretel is right to feel nauseous.

The longer the siblings remain here, the more freaked out they become and the more eager they are to run. But there are potential dangers lurking outside, as well. The witch is clearly fattening up Hansel while Gretel keeps hearing undetermined voices of the dead and having visions. Are they stuck in this place forever?

From the very beginning, thanks to Krige’s compelling narration at the top, we are hooked into this risky tweaking of a familiar story. Thankfully, the filmmakers are confident enough in their choices to focus more on atmosphere than cheap jump scares, although they don’t completely abandon them. This is very much a character-driven piece rather than a cheap spectacle.

They wisely slow down the pace so that it feels like time is standing still which suits the extremely patient witch just fine. (It takes time to make a potential victim plump and juicy.) There’s an eerie aura about the movie, a constant feeling of unease despite the beautifully photographed surroundings. A lot of that is due to the electronic retro-sounding score by Rob that never fails to indicate the constant doom the siblings have been lured into. Evoking sparse but moody horror scores of the 80s and early 90s, there’s a strong Trent Reznor vibe here that recalls elements of his Downward Spiral album.

Krige’s dedication to her character’s depravity truly pays off in a memorable scene where she pulls a long strand of braided hair out of her mouth, an image so disturbing it’s replicated on the cover of the Blu-ray. The moment comes after the witch in the woods realizes that Gretel is not at all willing to put her own needs ahead of her brother’s. The movie begins with her being slightly annoyed that he’s always by her side no matter where she goes. Over time, she becomes a more loving and protective parental figure than their own mother.

It was wise to make Gretel an older character, a cynical teen on the cusp of womanhood who views the outside world as a distrustful adversary always concealing nefarious motives under sugary treats. Much of the film is about her inability to find a decent role model. Her wacko mother denies her magical talents and forbids her from even discussing them while the witch only wants her to use her powers to become a burgeoning cannibal like her.

Neither of them allow her to make her own decisions. Mom wants her to be an obedient domestic (a disastrous job interview results in creepy sexual harassment) while the witch urges her to turn heel. She’s also not interested in chopping down trees like her brother, a suggestion the otherwise well-meaning hunter makes which is further encouraged by Krige.

Gretel & Hansel would probably not have been made were it not for The Witch a few years earlier. Another strong period piece emphasizing bleak moods over sudden thrusts into the frame, it too has a young teen protagonist torn between her loyalty to her dysfunctional, banished family and the temptation to seek liberation through a coven of unrestrained heretics.

If there is a flaw about Gretel herself, it’s her stubborn denial about her destiny, a quality not shared with Anya Newton-Joy in The Witch. In the final scene, when she no longer hides her true self, she insists she will not change, she will not replace the evil presence in these woods. Finally fully independent and supposedly liberated, if she’s no threat to humanity, why are her fingers turning black?

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Tuesday, August 17, 2021
3:06 a.m.

You Should Have Left (2020)

Are they talking to the characters or the audience? Maybe they’re just mocking themselves.

Kevin Bacon plays a retired banker with a dark secret. Amanda Seyfried is his hot younger wife, the mother of their young daughter. An aspiring actress, she has a secret of her own.

Clearly mismatched in multiple ways, neither is willing to be completely forthcoming about all the sources of growing tension in their marriage. So thoroughly annoyed with her excessive cell phone usage, among other irritations, Bacon privately vents about it all in a journal, the suggestion of a Deepak Chopra wannabe whose relaxation recordings he habitually listens to. Maybe he should try saying, “Serenity now!”

Not helping is their significant age gap. When Bacon goes to visit her on set, he’s refused entry and has to listen to her fake moaning during a simulated sex scene for her latest project. During their own sizzle-free encounter in a parked car, she claims relief at achieving a real orgasm and wants to keep going, but Bacon is all tapped out. (Is it really that difficult to stay hard for this gorgeous dame?)

Increasingly suspicious, he can’t help himself. He starts snooping through all her devices. His paranoia is eventually justified. One wonders why they’re even married at all.

All set to do another movie in Europe, Bacon convinces his second wife to move their family temporarily to Wales. They find an unusual house in a tiny village where the local grocery store is run by a very slow old man who knows a lot more about the dangers they’re unwittingly walking into. A little research goes a long way, you know.

Maybe unwittingly is not the right word, actually. No, they’re clearly being summoned here. But why?

30 minutes into the film, Ella (Avery Essex), their cute, curious daughter, once again asks about daddy’s past and finally gets an answer. A reluctant Seyfried offers a brief, incriminating recap that is far from comprehensive. This causes a fight. Ella wasn’t supposed to know any of this yet.

Bacon’s first wife died in a bathtub under murky circumstances. Fingered as a possible culprit, he survived a criminal trial but no one has accepted his acquittal. The worst botched prosecution since OJ.

I mean, who are they fooling here? Do we really think Bacon is innocent? He clearly has an anger problem which he is desperate to suppress for reasons that are so blatantly obvious, why bother being coy about who he really is? Even weirder, his “dark side” is a big turn-on for Seyfried but not enough apparently for her to stay fully committed.

In the meantime, from the moment the family moves in, Bacon and his daughter start noticing odd things.

An unexplained shadow on the wall. Lights that turn themselves on, even after you turn them off. Mysteriously posted Polaroids capturing private moments of vulnerability and exploration. A doorway that only shows up some of the time. Endless amounts of hallways. A villain in a baseball cap.

That is when they’re not experiencing night terrors, a carryover phenomenon from their previous residence.

Someone, or some thing, knows what really happened to Bacon’s wife. And since a jury didn’t convict him, true justice has yet to be administered. It’s up to this self-appointed enigmatic entity to render its own punishment. One wonders why it cares so much. My guess is that’s it’s incredibly lonely. If that’s the case, capture Seyfried instead.

The well preserved Kevin Bacon is the absolute wrong actor to play this guy. Unwilling to go full heel right from the very start, he has to be cagey and reserved to maintain this illusion of innocence which is pointless because he’s clearly guilty. As he gets continually tortured by the house’s haunted spirit, there he is at one point slapping himself silly correctly believing some of what’s happening to him is in his head. But not everything is a bad dream.

Belatedly coming to the conclusion that it’s time to skedaddle, after he does Seyfried a favour by kicking her out of the house, he tries to flee with his daughter late on a cold night. Taking its cue from the Blair Witch movies, all that walking around is futile. There is no leaving. Your sentence awaits.

You Should Have Left was meant for a theatrical run in 2020 but due to the pandemic it was dumped on streaming services and later home video. I can’t imagine it playing any better on a big screen.

Bacon and Seyfried are good actors ill-suited for their roles. There’s zilcho chemistry between them during their happier moments and barely any tension during their even-tempered arguments. Bacon “slut” shames his second bride at one point but she just drives off and weeps. No matter what he does, Ella shows him unconditional love. The film plays like a reluctant Shining where the real heavy is unwilling to throw down and get truly evil. His attempts at reforming his bad behaviour are an absolute failure. He’s still a dick but ironically not enough for me to truly despise him. I mean Seyfried has her own ethical cross to bear.

When Bacon confirms to Seyfried what we’ve known since the first half hour, even that lands like a dud. Is he claiming negligence instead of intent? And what exactly annoyed him about his first wife? Was she was a cell phone addict, too?

There is one revelation he offers that does explain the title. It does not explain why he decided to jump into another bad marriage in order to learn this hard lesson all over again.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Tuesday, August 17, 2021
3:13 a.m.