Movie Review: "The Babadook"

The Babadook (2014)

Four and half Stars out of Five

Not Rated

Amelia Vanek: Essie Davis

Samuel Vanek: Noah Wiseman

Claire: Hayley McElhinney

Writer/Director: Jennifer Kent

Music: Jed Kurzel

Cinematography: Radek Ladczuk

One of my favorite kinds of movies is the type that teases the audience with its true genre. Is the story a horror movie, is it a psychological thriller, or is it a combination. Writer/director Jennifer Kent brings her Australian entry to this mind game with “The Babadook” (rhymes with look). Because of the intermingling of genre in “The Babadook”, this movie can be enjoyed by fans of either movie type, but it is in my opinion a very powerful tale of the difficulties faced by a single parent overwhelmed by grief and solely held parental responsibilities.

The story was filmed in Adelaide Australia, but most definitely could be placed almost anywhere in the world. Amelia (Essie Davis) is the mother of six-year old Samuel (Noah Wiseman). Her husband Oskar died in a horrible car accident as he drove the expectant Amelia to the hospital. She has had as a consequence been forced to raise Samuel by herself, and the strain on them both is beginning to take a toll. Samuel repeatedly acts out at school, oftentimes violently. He is as a consequence expelled from school, forcing Amelia to find daycare and school alternatives for him. She in the meanwhile labors away at a nursing home as a medical assistant. She lacks both the fiscal and physical means to raise Samuel. Into this fraught picture, Samuel begins to be unable to sleep. He wakes screaming each night that there is a monster beneath his bed or in the closet. Amelia is shown initially calming him, but soon her own lack of sleep takes a further toll on her already strained resources.

Having set the above scene in what is essentially a two part-story, writer/director Kent has created a tableau that strongly suggests the difficulties faced by many single parents; the emotional and financial strains that can tear apart such families. She heightens the situation by having the Samuel character display what seems to be characteristics of a psychologically unhinged child. These effects are played out by the best performance by a child actor in the form of Noah Wiseman as Samuel that I have seen since Anna Paquin co-starred as Flora McGrath in “The Piano” (1993). In fact, all other comments aside, “The Babadook” is worth seeing for young Wiseman’s performance alone. He is able to channel a terrified behavior that seems almost demonic in the first part of the movie and once his fear subsides can alternate to the loving child that lives within. That loving child shows up full time in the second part of “The Babadook”, and this is a key feature of Kent’s storytelling. The protective/sane mother in part one desperately needs the love and protective spirit of her child in part two of the story.

The movie segues into part two when one of the familiar tropes of horror movies makes it entrance: a blood red book is found by Samuel on the bookshelf. The mother knows nothing of it; how did it get there, no one knows. They read the book together. It is a pop-up book that becomes increasingly alarming to Amelia the further into the book they read. Samuel now has a name for his fears, the book’s (and the movie’s title), The Babadook. The movie gets a little predictable for a while at this point: Samuel’s behavior worsens, Amelia feels the book is the focus of his fears (rather than the life they lead), she tears up the book, she seeks help from a skeptical sister and police department, and voila the book re-appears, repaired. However, these clichés aside, this is where Kent builds some subtlety into the story.

When she approaches the police and tells them of the re-appearance of the repaired book, they ask to see it. She must inform them that she has burnt it, and worse her hands have something that may be glue on them. Did she actually repair the book herself? Is she in fact coming unhinged by the pressures in her life and has found the Babadook in whatever form (i.e. actual monster or someone stalking her and Samuel) as a convenient scapegoat for her troubles. Is in fact, the Babdook, her grief come alive, not in real, monstrous form, not even in a metaphorical form, but actually in the form of a woman suffering from delusions? When she later sees the Babadook on her ceiling or when he (using another horror film trope) enters her via her mouth, and then sees her deceased husband when she stares at the Babadook, what other rational explanation can there be but that she grieves still? Near the end of the movie, the lines between whether her grief in the form of the Babadook can be seen by her alone or maybe by Samuel, too become blurred. Near the movie’s end and after Samuel’s loving touch to her cheek allows her to vomit up a black inky like substance, Samuel also tells her the Babadook will never leave. She must instead learn to live with it; and now we really see the meaning behind the Babadook. Her problem and thus Samuel’s is she must learn to live with the grief she feels for Oskar’s death. It won’t go away, things will never be as they were, but she can learn to cope. The movie provides an odd little horror movie antidote to her problems. But no, the real antidote is that Amelia has learned to live with her tragic loss, and as such has actually learned how to provide a life with hope for her son.

This movie is not a profoundly deep one, but it does give some good life lessons on dealing with grief. Kent has cleverly colored her tale in the drapery of a horror film, and she does a good job doing so. The artwork of the Babadook book is clever in its use of color and design. The rhymes within are artful and well suited to the horror movie genre. Noah Wiseman’s performance as a tormented child is so amazing, one completely forgets he is a six year old acting a role, and the viewer becomes quite submerged in his performance. However, the brilliance of this movie is the use by Kent in telling a human story about grief, about raising children alone, and telling it in a style that can be enjoyed on multiple levels. An excellent movie that can be enjoyed by anyone inured to the horror movie genre, and interested in tales about the human condition.