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Kindred, review: Rosemary’s Baby meets Get Out in this psychological nightmare

Tamara Lawrence (r) is at the mercy of Fiona Shaw (l) in Kindred - Handout
Tamara Lawrence (r) is at the mercy of Fiona Shaw (l) in Kindred - Handout
  • Dir: Joe Marcantonio. Starring: Tamara Lawrance, Jack Lowden, Fiona Shaw, Edward Holcroft, Chloe Pirrie, Anton Lesser. 15 cert, 101 min

The British psychological thriller Kindred has some close relations – two in particular. It’s Get Out meets Rosemary’s Baby. We begin with an awkward family visit, miles from anywhere, and essentially stay there, trapped in a country house that’s falling apart at the seams.

Charlotte (Tamara Lawrance) is the outsider, a young black woman whose relationship with a dashing white boyfriend called Ben (Edward Holcroft) has landed her in this queasy predicament. The couple want to flee to Australia, but this Harry-and-Meghan-ish news gives Ben’s mother Margaret (Fiona Shaw) an instant attack of the vapours. She insists they do no such thing.

Margaret, played by Shaw as an imperious and often crazed grande dame, proves a much trickier obstacle to get around than Her Royal Highness. Then there’s Thomas (a deft Jack Lowden), her stepson from another marriage, who creeps around the estate eavesdropping and, since Charlotte is a vegetarian, offering quiche. He and Ben barely have a polite word to say to one another.

There are two developments for which Charlotte is unprepared. While one arguably counts as a spoiler, the other is a sudden diagnosis of pregnancy. This is weird news to process, since she’s been taking the pill, but it does help explain the dizzy spells. In this newly vulnerable state, she finds herself ensconced in the house as a virtual prisoner, expected to bring new life into this crumbling clan, and with no say in the matter.

Writer-director Joe Marcantonio makes his feature debut here, with an original script that was once called “Corvidae” – a reference to the rasping crows that keep taunting Charlotte as harbingers of doom. The film builds its suspense on a solid foundation of unease, once Charlotte grasps that no one – perhaps least of all Anton Lesser as the family doctor – has her best interests at heart.

While right on the cusp of OTT, Shaw’s tottering turn as this baby-hungry matriarch is ripely entertaining, and Marcantonio knows what he’s doing with the taut pacing of Charlotte’s escape attempts. Lowden’s unctuous portrait of the resident parasite, with a touch of Steerpike from Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast, becomes increasingly important.

The film limits itself partly by sheer straightforwardness, but also by lacking the vivid minor characters that gave its genre predecessors such clammy texture. A fuller conception of this family might have opened some further, useful doors. The secrets Margaret and Thomas are still meant to be harbouring feel a trifle arcane; those revelations fall flat.

The strongest asset, by a distance, is Lawrance, a scorching stage discovery who has played Viola at the NT and Cordelia opposite Ian McKellen’s Lear. If Charlotte didn’t put up enough of a fight, the tension would sputter out. Luckily, her performance summons seething rage in the midst of exhaustion, and giddy relief when she thinks she’s escaped these monster-in-laws.

More than likely, she hasn’t. As her due-date looms, this conniving firm deploy bolts on the outside of bedroom doors, new colour schemes for their creepy nursery, and all sorts. By turning its heroine's confinement into a literal ordeal, Kindred grips best as a neo-Victorian nightmare of maternity.

On Sky Cinema from Friday