Review: Resurrection

Image courtesy of IFC Films.

Andrew Semans' "Resurrection" opens on a young woman's face as she describes to her boss - Margaret (an intense Rebecca Hall) - how her boyfriend often makes jokes at her expense and how, when she objects, he gaslights her into believing she just doesn't get the joke. Margaret gives some pretty good advice: Dump the creep and find someone who makes you feel good about yourself. For Margaret, however, this advice is easier said than done.

"Resurrection" is an odd and chilly thriller about a woman who believes she is being tormented by her past that plays like a standard thriller for about half of its running time before transforming into something much more sinister and, quite frankly, deranged. It's very difficult to discuss the film without giving away its twist - although it's less of a twist and more of an explanation that defies all sense of logic - and trying to make sense of it all is an even heavier lift.

Margaret is a very tightly wound manager in the biotech industry who is overly protective of her daughter, Abbie (Grace Kaufman), and has a noncommittal fling going on with a married coworker (Michael Esper), who appears to have more feelings for her than she does for him. 

All seems well and good enough - despite Margaret's intensely vigorous morning workouts, which depict some possible psychic torment - until one day Margaret spots a man named David (Tim Roth, creepy in a placid sort of a way) seated at a conference she is attending. Margaret flees and runs all the way home, cries in her bedroom and frightens her daughter in the process.

Suddenly, this man starts popping up everywhere - in department stores, in the park and elsewhere, and finally Margaret approaches him and tells him to "go away." At first, he pretends not to know her, but he then makes comments assuring us that he does. Margaret starts to slowly become unhinged by this man's presence, and David makes it clear that he's not going anywhere.

In the film's acting piece-de-resistance, Margaret relays to a coworker via a seven-minute unbroken monologue about her connection to this man - and suffice it to say, it'll elicit strong reactions. It's the type of scene that could have played for absurdist black comedy, but instead comes off as demented due to the complete seriousness with which it's delivered. There's a brief hint at what's going when Margaret confronts David and he makes a brief mention about a baby the two had together and where it is now.

Margaret begins to come undone, alienating her daughter, who has become terrified of her mother, and pretty much everyone else. David attempts to get Margaret to submit to psychological games - which Margaret had mentioned to the coworker in her monologue - known as "kindnesses" in which he asks her to take part in a task, such as walking to work barefoot every day, in an attempt to retain mind control over her.

The film becomes increasingly warped, and bears some resemblance to Andrzej Zulawski's insane 1981 masterpiece "Possession," in which another woman (Isabelle Adjani) undergoes a disturbing transformation. I definitely liked "Resurrection," even if its culmination involves a bit of weirdness that becomes too literal, when it could have been better left to the viewer to decide what's real or not. Hall, who was previously so good in the chilly horror film "The Night House," gives another doozy of a performance here and Roth exudes a calm menace. 

This is the type of picture that will elicit strong reactions: You either allow yourself to go with its weird flow and accept that what you're seeing could either be an unbelievably bonkers story or merely the figments of someone's fragmented imagination, or you might find that "Resurrection" is too off-putting to take. I'm in the former camp. Even if the picture falters a little in its gruesome denouement, it's certainly unlike anything else I've seen this year, Hall's performance is impressive and its eerie and bizarre tone keeps it compelling. So, yes, I'd recommend it, but don't say I didn't warn you.