When it comes to half-remembered films of childhood, ‘90s kids of a certain vintage hold a special spot for 1994’s Clifford. On paper, the film could have been just another of the countless bratsploitation pictures which flooded multiplexes in the wake of Home Alone: a hellraising boy torments his uptight, business-minded uncle with a series of improbably elaborate pranks. What sets Clifford apart, however, is the fact that its titular ten-year-old is played by Martin Short, at the time a sprightly 44. The adult Short’s demented energy as the child transforms the film into something unforgettably surreal, not least because the cast around him (including perennial straightman Charles Grodin and Oscar-winner Mary Steenburgen) play the film completely straight. Short’s performance is a perverse tour de force so deeply strange that it bends the reality of the film around it.
I was surprised to find myself thinking about Clifford while watching The Front Room, the new thriller from Max and Sam Eggers (brothers of modern horror master Robert). In tone and in structure, The Front Room is comparable to any number of contemporary horror pictures. But, like Clifford, The Front Room possesses at its center a performance so jaw-dropping that it alters the film’s very chemistry. I’m not positive The Front Room is, in itself, a great movie, but it’s got something you’ve gotta see to believe.
The Front Room begins, like so many other horror films, with a young, professional couple settling into a new house (this particular idiom is more the domain of Blumhouse than the “elevated” offerings of A24– perhaps another sign of the studio’s aims to expand beyond the arthouse). Belinda Irwin (played by ‘90s pop superstar Brandy!) is a nervously expectant mother, both because her college uses her condition to effectively bump her down to adjunct status (“I’ve seen so many people like you just give up,” the dean’s secretary patronizingly smiles) and because a previous pregnancy resulted in stillbirth. The Irwins’ stresses are multiplied when husband Norman (Andrew Burnap) receives word that his estranged father has passed– and that final wish was that the Irwins take in Norman’s even-more-estranged stepmother, Solange.
Everything up until this point is, more or less, horror business as usual, from the blandly suburban setting to the somewhat generic title. But when we meet Solange, The Front Room becomes something altogether different.
Solange, you see, is played by Kathryn Hunter, the veteran London stage actress whose recent screen credits include the Wyrd Sisters in Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth and the lascivious Madame Swiney in Poor Things. There isn’t another working actor today remotely like Kathryn Hunter, and it’s very possible that there never has been. With her distinctive croak and tiny, endlessly contorting frame, Hunter could plausibly be mistaken for a CGI creation rather than a flesh-and-blood actor. If you’re seeing Hunter for the first time on screen, your first reaction will likely be “Who is that?!” If you’ve seen her before, you will react with anticipation and delight.
Hunter’s interpretation of Solange is every bit as fascinating and jaw-dropping as Short’s performance in Clifford, and just as surely alters the very biological makeup of the film. She plays her as the gnarled husk of a southern belle, her sweetly snarling grin the face of false hospitality. Hunter has a ball with her burlesque of a southern accent, leaning into every syllable and calling her daughter-in-law “Buh-linder!”* She tromps around the house on two heavy canes, and continuously finds new ways to make herself physically offputting. The central pleasure of The Front Room is in watching Hunter’s castmates interact with her while also trying to portray normal human beings who live on earth. Brandy isn’t quite Charles Grodin, but she is nevertheless excellent at carrying herself with dignity and pathos. When Solange does manage to successfully wind her up, the results are darkly hilarious.
All of which makes it somewhat disappointing that the film which contains this astonishing performance isn’t just a little bit better. The other central “joke” to The Front Room– and I suppose this might constitute a spoiler– is that, for all its gothic trappings, there is little if any actual supernatural business going on here. The film gets good mileage out of horror tropes, but they mostly turn out to be set dressing. A scene in which Solange invites her church group into their home to welcome the parents’ new arrival, for example, deliberately recalls Rosemary’s Baby, but these aren’t Satanists– just awful Christians. This is a “horror story,” but its nightmare is a grounded one, the all-too-real experience of inviting a manipulative, foul-smelling, and unabashedly racist family member into one’s life. With a lighter touch, one could easily transpose this same material into a broad comedy, right down to the plentiful piss and fart jokes.
This is a pretty clever idea, but it doesn’t quite make for satisfying moviegoing. Everything about the film, from Hunter’s outre performance to a pre-show PSA from Brandy encouraging audiences to hoot and holler back at the screen, promises a nutzoid release which never quite materializes. The film remains an effectively nasty piece of work, and it has a great kicker of a final scene, but even then it’s hard not to feel a little let down that that’s all we get. Loath as I am to criticize a film for not conforming to genre expectations, The Front Room never quite makes it to the firework factory.
Still, one can’t fully dismiss a film built around one of the best performances of the year. The Front Room is worth seeing for the spectacle that is Kathryn Hunter, and while the Eggers’ ideas don’t gel as well as those of their most famous brother, one can sense the talents at work. I will be curious to see what they do next, and all the better if they continue to work with either of their leading ladies. The Front Room is far from an unqualified success, but it is the Clifford of horror movies, and that ain’t nothing.
* – A curious aside: Solange’s initial call to Norman displays as a 617 number, which Hassle readers will of course know originates from the Metro Boston area. The Front Room was shot primarily in New York and New Jersey, and Solange is the sort of character who spits out the word “yankee” with as much vitriol as the N-word, which makes the choice of area code genuinely puzzling. My working theory is that the particular number holds some sort of significance for the Eggers brothers, who were born and raised in New England, and was included as an in-joke.
The Front Room
2024
dir. Max & Sam Eggers
94 min.
Opens Friday, 9/6 @ Coolidge Corner Theatre, Somerville Theatre, and theaters everywhere
