Never waste your pain

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's Top 50 Movies of 2020...

#7 : Saint Maud

Chilling horror-drama from director Rose Glass, featuring Morfydd Clark as a palliative care nurse who is looking after a former dancer, played by Jennifer Ehle – and whose intense religious yearnings eventually play out in a deeply strange and terrifying way.

Yup - another film I've heard of but not seen.  And again I've heard good things about it, but me and horror films don't generally get on, so I suspect I would have given this one a miss.

But - I'll just start by saying that would have been a terrible mistake!  This is a cracking film - and, whilst I can understand why it's described as horror (or horror-drama if you work for The Guardian) it's got a lot of other layers to it.  As The Guardian describes, it focuses on the relationship between a nurse and her patient and it's fair to say that religion also plays a prominent role - Maud has recently taken it to her heart and that journey continues throughout the film.  I'm not going to go into any more detail because it's best if you just watch it and find out what happens - it's fair to say the ending in general is not going to surprise anyone but there are plenty of details within it that you probably won't expect.  And it has a very fine final two seconds indeed, which give a different slant to all that has come before.

Having just said that it's not really a horror film, there are quite a few disquieting moments and there was one that made me gasp out loud - it's not something you see, but something you imagine, which just makes it worse for me.  The script backs these moments up well providing a good sense of Maud's disconnect from reality - a well-crafted mix of the mundane and the spiritual (and it also features a fine throw-away use of the c word!).  And things are further reinforced by some impressive visual effects for a film that can't have had the biggest budget - for those that have seen it, I particularly liked the bit in the pub, which worked very well for me.  

This film shares a few film-making characteristics with the previous film - there are some cracking visuals (an early shot of some bubbling tomato soup is very disturbing until you realise what it is) taken from some odd angles with some impressive lighting involved.  It also uses a lot of short scenes (although not to quite the same extent as The Assistant did - because I'm not sure that's actually possible).  The use of sound is also impressive throughout to create an unnerving feel and the setting chosen works well with a down-at-heel (but not dead yet) seaside town contrasting nicely with an impressively spooky house (so much dark wallpaper!).

Another characteristic it shares with the previous film is a cracking lead performance from a young woman - Morfydd Clark is superb as Maud, giving you exactly the amount of certainty and uncertainty that's needed for the role (I've just read she's going to be Galadriel in the new LOTR TV series and that feels like perfect casting to me).  Jennifer Ehle also deserves plaudits for her very unglamorous portrayal of the dying dancer - she's a very under-rated actor who improves most of the films she appears in (although I can't claim to have experienced her efforts in the Fifty Shades trilogy).

And one further similarity with The Attendant is that it's written and directed by a female newcomer - Rose Glass making her directorial debut in this case.  And if this isn't a signature statement marking her out as one to watch, then I really don't know what is - I'll be very interested to see what she does next.

A final few facts that I picked up reading about the film afterwards which will only make sense for people that have seen the film - I recognised that God was speaking Welsh (which I'd have to say works very well as His language) but I was somewhat surprised to read that it's Morfydd Clark's voice (slightly altered).  And something else I didn't notice at the time is that Maud's eyes change colour throughout the film - ten points to you if you spotted that.  

So overall, it's a good story which is well written, acted and shot and, at 84 minutes long, is in no danger of outstaying its welcome - what more could you want?  Everyone involved should take a huge amount of credit and I wholeheartedly recommend it, although you might not want some bits of it with your kids (or your parents!).

At the time of writing, Saint Maud is available to watch on Amazon Prime and I might just watch it again (if only to spot her eyes changing colour)

#8 - An interesting film that slightly misses the mark for me
#6 - Another fine film