Drama during the day and a nightmare at night – review of the movie “The Night House”

Although, after the first description, The Night House may seem clichéd and uninviting – or at least not encouraged me too much – there is a strength in its simplicity. The script is not overcomplicated, and the production is defended above all by the quality of workmanship, i.e. the disturbing atmosphere, interesting scenes and very close contact with a really well-played main character.

Secrets, secrets are no fun…

The opening of the storyline is, as I mentioned, rather unspeakable. We recognize Beth as someone trying to get back on her feet after her husband’s recent suicide, which seemed to be his own. In the first scenes we see him returning to work for a few days in order to complete the annual classification of students; We then receive a few more or less blunt hints that the wound is still fresh and the protagonist is not coping well with it. Beth is abusing alcohol, has fits of cold fury, and sometimes makes gloomy, disturbing jokes. Friends and colleagues at work, although concerned, clearly feel uncomfortable in her company and are afraid of making a blunder with her or unintentionally causing some kind of emotional outburst. At the same time, however, they are consumed by their curiosity,

This curiosity also accompanies the spouse of the deceased, which pushes her to carefully search her partner’s personal belongings and leads her to the trail of … what exactly? Romance? Double life? Implemented in the secret of the project? When starting her investigation, Beth has no idea that she is just squeezing through the rabbit hole, on the other side of which it will no longer be possible to interrupt the pursuit of secrets.

Life dramas and dreamlike escapades

It is worth mentioning that the title of the film is absolutely not accidental, because it has a very clear division into day and night scenes, clearly governed by different laws. During the day, Beth spends time away from home, and the overall tone of these fragments oscillates somewhere between morality and thriller. Together with the woman, we look for further clues, visit friends and have the opportunity to observe changes in her mental state, whether through the prism of ongoing conversations or significant behaviors, such as the aforementioned exaggeration with alcohol. Nevertheless, we feel relatively safe before sunset, and we have no doubts what exactly is happening on the screen.

After dark, however, everything starts to blur. Night sequences use tricks typical of a horror film, and often reach for a film depiction of the poetics of sleep, which creates a disturbing, slightly surreal atmosphere. The house seems to be alive, we feel watched, and Beth herself moves through a fluid, plastic and unpredictable reality. The meaning of subsequent events and visions is difficult to figure out when watching them, and the script deliberately plays with the viewer an old, good game called “is it really happening?”. Everyone has to answer this question for himself, because some interpret the plot literally, while others decide to reject paranormal elements altogether and interpret The Night House as an indirect and metaphorical story of depression, loss and guilt.

Sometimes it’s worth not to crumble

While you might have expected David Bruckner’s painting to be extremely complex and difficult to read from my earlier words, nothing could be further from the truth. The Night House is a tailor-made suit; closed whole without broken threads and unnecessary ornaments. In the plot, Beth and only Beth counts – this is her tragedy, her story, her future, which she has to choose. The film does not attempt to outline the side characters accurately, create a vision of the world, introduce events unrelated to the core of the story… none of those things. This simplicity, however, does not make it poor at all, but rather clear, blunt and more resonant with the recipient. The protagonist is alone in a house full of demons – internal demons, demons of the past … or maybe some more? – and we stay there with her, living all that she lives and nothing else.

In this sense, The Night House is a complete work, in which each applied trick, treatment and idea perfectly complements the others, and all levels, from visuals, through music, to narrative shot, converge into a coherent, readable and attractive whole for the recipient.

We invite you to watch the movie The Night House in Cinema City cinemas!