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.
