Rebecca Hall is an accomplished, superb actress who ventured into the world of directing with last year’s Passing. She’s back in front of the camera in Andrew Semans’ Resurrection, a psychological thriller that is unnerving and brim with themes surrounding motherhood, fear, and toxic relationships. While Resurrection veers into the absurd at one point, it’s unhinged, intense, and worth watching for Hall’s performance, as well as the thematic layers that are just waiting to be explored.
Margaret (Hall) has a solid career in biotech and a 17-year-old daughter, Abbie (Grace Kaufman), she adores and is overprotective over. Everything in her life seems to be going well enough — that is, until she spots a figure from her past at a work conference and has a panic attack. That figure turns out to be David Moore (Tim Roth), the man Margaret was in a relationship with when she was just 18-years-old and too young to understand the toxicity it would entail. Abusive can’t even begin to describe David and his reappearance dredges up the past in ways that send Margaret over the edge. Afraid that David will hurt Abbie (and he threatens to do so), Margaret becomes even more overprotective and smothers her daughter, asking her to check in constantly and to not leave the house. All the while, Margaret hatches a plan to finally free herself from David’s influence for good.
While it’s firmly a psychological drama, Resurrection has supernatural elements that will have the audience questioning what is and isn’t real. This is especially true as Margaret’s unraveling escalates, creeping further into strange territory. Semans handles these aspects and the film’s themes rather well, even if the story itself goes off in a rather wild direction by its conclusion, leaving one to think about exactly what it is they just saw. Maintaining Margaret’s perspective helps ground Resurrection and also creates a heightened sense of unease. Is Margaret seeing David because she’s stricken by Abbie leaving for college soon? After all, she didn’t teach her daughter how to ride a bike out of an abundance of caution (which leads to a bicycle accident), with Margaret always fearful of letting Abbie out of her sight, still haunted by her past. Interestingly, Abbie isn’t scared of anything outside of her mother’s behavior. To that end, the ramping up of Margaret’s anxieties and fears is certainly worth noting for its timing in the story.
Resurrection is a meditation on motherhood — the guilt that emerges when something goes terribly wrong, the grief of losing a child, and how abusers can use a child against a mother in a bid to manipulate them. Is Margaret a bad mother or is that just her guilt and trauma talking? Hall’s chilling delivery about mothers being “gloriously disposable” is one that weighs heavy in the air, especially considering how, as soon as David emerges, Margaret’s entire mission becomes about protecting her daughter, losing herself entirely in the process. Crucially, the film explores how abuse and trauma can manifest long after a victim has been removed from the situation. In this case, Margaret doesn’t seem to have gotten any help in overcoming her trauma, which leads her toward a downward spiral in the present.
Resurrection isn’t as tightly written as The Night House, the 2021 psychological horror also starring Hall as a woman who unravels, and it becomes somewhat repetitive as Margaret falls into the cycle of stalking David. The film provides some answers without feeling the need to do an expository scene regarding what’s going on, but the inclusion of its most obvious supernatural moment — which is unbelievable enough to have one question what’s really going on — make for a slightly undercooked finale. Viewers might wish there was a bit more time before getting to its shocking end, especially as the surreal and somewhat absurd start to feel increasingly, and overwhelmingly, real.
But even when it does, Resurrection is elevated by Hall’s engaging performance. Margaret is put together then shaky and disheveled, confident then scared, protective but loving, calculated but anxious. Hall approaches each stage of Margaret’s state with ease, and it’s believable that she would become so rattled to the point of erratic behavior thanks to the actress’ portrayal. In one particular scene, where Hall delivers a seven-minute monologue about her past, filmed in close-up with only a black background, her steely gaze and factual delivery are captivating. Tim Roth is also very good, portraying David as someone whose cool demeanor makes way for something more sinister and grotesque. As David, Roth starts off as someone who is almost pleasant before the truth of what he’s doing begins to take hold, coloring every word and action thereafter.
Despite the chaos of the ending, Resurrection is a deeply felt film that explores trauma, motherhood, and the effects of having to go it alone when the truth of one’s experience can seem overwhelming despite being true. Semans’ film is gripping and will leave one with a lot to think about when all is said and done.
Resurrection premiered during the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. The film is 103 minutes long and is not yet rated.