It’s easy to get your hopes up at the start of She Will when the words Dario Argento Presents appear on the screen in the iconic font one cannot help but associate with Suspiria. However, if you were expecting this film, which Argento executive produced, to be another spellbinding classic, you’ll be disappointed. Directed by Charlotte Colbert (in her feature debut) from a script by Colbert and Kitty Percy, She Will boasts some striking images and solid performances, but the film’s story falls surprisingly flat in its attempts to channel aspects of the #MeToo movement through the medium of psychological horror.
Mother of Tears
Veronica Ghent (Alice Krige) is a movie star in decline. The film that made her famous as a teenage actress is now being remade by its director, Eric Hathbourne (Malcolm McDowell). Yet while Hathbourne is on the verge of a knighthood for his contributions to cinema, Veronica is practically forgotten, left alone with her memories of the trauma that Hathbourne subjected her to during the making of the film. When she is remembered, it is to be castigated on the front of tabloids for that most terrible of crimes that a woman can commit: growing old.
Following a double mastectomy, Veronica heads to a retreat in the remote Scottish countryside to recover, accompanied by a young nurse named Desi (Kota Eberhardt). Upon their arrival, Veronica is unpleasantly shocked to discover that the estate is crawling with obnoxious weirdos engaged in group therapy (including Rupert Everett). She also learns that the soil is rich with the ashes of the thousands of women who were burned in the surrounding area as witches many years ago; the residual magic and anger present in the earth bestows Veronica with the power to enact her long-awaited revenge on Hathbourne through her dreams.
Season of the Witch
A woman taking revenge on her abuser through the power of witchcraft should be thrilling, but She Will is mostly a mess. The film is undeniably pretty to look at, especially the untamed Scottish landscape as captured by cinematographer Jamie Ramsay, but it is far too reliant on heavy-handed, overly edited montages to tell its story. There is one scene in particular, where Veronica is possessed by the spirits of the earth during a group drawing session and starts smearing dirt all over her canvas, which suffers from such excessive editing and scoring that it feels incredibly silly. Indeed, while Clint Mansell’s music adds to the creepy atmosphere in many instances, there are others where all that medieval-style chanting in crescendo gives the impression that the music is trying too hard to compensate for the film’s overall lack of chills.
We never know exactly what Hathbourne put Veronica through while making their film together; we know it is called Navajo Frontier, but we don’t even know what it was about (nor why these very white British folks were making a movie with such a title). In fact, we barely see Hathbourne on screen at all, which is practically a crime when you have a living legend like McDowell in the role. Dreamlike images of a young Veronica are juxtaposed in nightmarish montages to show us how haunted she is by the experience of working with him so many years ago, but it’s hard to grasp exactly why. Now, I don’t need everything in a film spelled out for me, nor do I have a desire to see yet another graphic depiction of a woman’s trauma onscreen. (Goodness knows Game of Thrones gave me enough scenes like that to last a lifetime). Yet in keeping so much about Veronica’s past so close to the chest, She Will makes it unnecessarily difficult to care about her in the present.
Good thing veteran actress Krige does not disappoint in the role, doing everything she can with the material to provide a sharp, probing exploration of one woman coming to terms with the aging process and reclaiming her power. Eberhardt is also impressive as Desi, the young woman who might be a generation or two removed from Veronica but still has so much in common with her; she too has suffered and needs to be healed. Their scenes together are touching and often very funny, and do far more to make one invested in She Will than all of the montages of witches burning, women screaming, and mud dripping could ever hope to accomplish.
Conclusion
While director Colbert shows an innate talent for crafting compelling images, She Will doesn’t do enough to stand out from the pack of other recent films to use psychological horror to tell a tale of #MeToo.
What do you think? What are some of your favorite psychological horror films? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
She Will opens in select theaters in the U.S. and on demand on July 15, 2022!
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