A harrowing tale of loss, grief and guilt
CAST: Anel Alexander, Shoki Mokgapa, Jacques Bessenger
DIRECTOR: Brett Michael Innes
After a tragic accident leads to the death of little girl Maia (Asante Mabuza), her mother, Rachel (Shoki Mokgapa) has to deal with her grief while still working for the woman that was supposed to be caring for her daughter the day she died, Michelle (Anel Alexander). Michelle is dealing with the guilt and anguish she’s feeling over the death, and the fact that she’s just fallen pregnant, and her husband, Chris (Jacques Bessenger), is dealing with the pulling away of his wife and the tension in his home between the two women. Together the three try to come to terms with what’s happened, even when they’re trying to push away their feelings as hard as they can.
First off, this is a very good movie. The story is compelling and interesting, offering an insight into the turmoil that comes with losing a child, the guilt over feeling responsible and the power of forgiveness over vengeance. It is a moving tale, well written, that sticks with you for a long time after the credits role.
The acting is wonderful. Alexander can pretty much always be relied on for a good performance, but this time she really shines. She portrays a woman that feels guilty for what she did, or didn’t do, but refuses to acknowledge that guilt, preferring to pretend nothing is wrong, all while everyone around her sees that something is wrong and suffers from her denial. She shows the inner turmoil of a person being eaten by guilt very well and creates a compelling character.
Mokgapa on the other hand doesn’t try to deny her pain. She, instead, revels in it, wallowing in the pain of child loss. There are several moments when her simply sitting, staring blankly into space, breaks your heart, or where her lying in bed, listening to the Creepy Crawly sucking for air, breaks her down into tears that the audience really feels her pain. It’s an exploration into less is more acting, and it works really well.
Bessenger is the man caught in the middle. He is Rachel’s friend, and feels her loss as if it was his own. He loves his wife, but feels her pulling away and retreating into herself, so much so that he starts looking outside the marriage for what he’s missing inside it. He’s also dealing with his own feelings over the death, his pain over losing the little girl that he saw as an adoptive child, and his anger over his wife’s complicity in her death, even if he knows logically that it wasn’t her fault. It’s a complex layered character and he pulls it off really well.
Those are the highlights of what should have been a really compelling and moving film, but there is one major flaw that actually disappointed me. Director Brett Michael Innes, for some reason, I’m not sure if it was written that way, decided to tell virtually the entire film in flashbacks. This created an issue for me, especially in the first half hour of the film. It starts after the child has already died, but you don’t know what’s actually happened. You know that there’s been some kind of tragedy, and that it probably revolved around a child, but you aren’t actually told until much later, hence all the emotional scenes in the first section of the movie are lacking since there’s no context for them. I really wanted to feel for these great actors giving great performances, but without understanding why they are so sad it had very little effect on me. It’s only about an hour into the film, when you’ve seen what actually happened, that you start to connect with the trauma, but by then it’s almost too late. It’s only due to the great performances that the film doesn’t fall flat. It really is a pity because it could have been far more effective.
This is a great film and fills me with hope in the direction South African cinema is heading, but please, stop with the flashbacks. This isn’t the first, or the worst, to use this format, but it really doesn’t work. Stick to a linear timeline and let’s make some really great films.
