Film Review: “Emelie”
Emelie is a 2015 horror/thriller film about a boy protecting his younger siblings from a deranged “babysitter.”
Basic Plot:
A couple is celebrating their anniversary and decide to call their regular babysitter, Maggie. Unfortunately, Maggie is unavailable, but informs the couple that her friend Anna can fill in for her. The father seemingly picks up Anna and takes her back home and introduces her to the family. The couple gives the new babysitter instructions and heads out for their date night. We see Anna interact with the kids normally, but as the night progresses she starts breaking rules and revealing a different, more malicious side to her.
Cast:
Sarah Bolger as Emelie
Joshua Rush as Jacob (total antihero; my favorite character in the movie)
Carly Adams as Sally (the little sister)
Thomas Bair as Christopher (the little brother; adorbs btw)
Susan Parfour as Joyce (the mom)
Chris Beetem as Dan (the dad)
Dante Hoagland as Howie (Howie’s only necessary in this movie for one thing, and that I think is the beauty of minor characters.)
Elizabeth Jayne as Maggie
Runtime:
80 minutes
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***Review: Yes, there will probably be some spoilers.***
The movie was good. It was short and to the point, there was one obvious trope (in this case, the character that isn’t everything that they seem), and there were obvious — but forgivable — inconsistencies. You don’t even need to follow along the whole time to get the gist of the movie.
It’s hard for me not to scream at the screen, when I’m watching…anything, really. Emelie is a movie, however crazy it may seem, that just highlights the madness some people are driven to. The audience learns that this woman has lost her child and is trying to replace him with another child. She will do anything to ease the pain. As she reveals her true nature by treating the children inappropriately, manipulatively, and cruelly, the audience wonders what her purpose is. Although the backstory is blurry and her implied reasoning is illogical, can someone as mentally ill exist? The audience also learns the woman’s partner is facilitating her in this quest to replace her dead child with someone else’s child. Her partner dies in the process. Would you go to such extreme lengths based on a total pipe dream? The reality is, yes, many people would. It might not be as outlandish as the pipe dream this woman has, but the lengths people go to fulfill something they realistically can’t is amazing.
Although that was a big part of the movie and it needed to be explained, it wasn’t explained well enough. It didn’t answer basic questions. How long has she been doing this for? How does she know where to prey on children? Has she kidnapped other children? The flashback to this moment in her life where her child dies, is blurry and doesn’t explain these things. I am someone who tends to like movies that leave things open to interpretation, but that doesn’t work in every movie; while it’s not a major detraction, it would have been better if the “explanation scene” was not vague.
Another significant part of this movie I’d like to address is Joshua Rush’s character: Jacob. At the beginning of the film, Joshua is your typical moody kid — the kind of kid that gets way to overplayed in films. I usually dismiss these characters (ha, imagine a moody teen not identifying with moody characters), hoping they aren’t the main focus and if they are, my irritation levels spike almost immediately. Jacob is a moody kid, but he also cares about his siblings and wants to protect them. He fears for them and knows something is wrong with the babysitter. His sister does not like the babysitter, but she doesn’t know any better; his brother, who is treated with the utmost appreciation by the obsessed woman, loves the babysitter. Jacob is the only one who is willing to do something about the situation, despite the moody, I-don’t-care vibe the film casts upon him at the start. He was, as I stated at the beginning, a total antihero. The hero role is forced onto him — he has to be the hero, because no one else can be.
The ending is such an important part of a movie that a director really doesn’t want to mess it up. You don’t want to end on a sour note and you don’t want your audience to have an enjoyable movie experience and mess it up by making the ending bad. Art is subjective, of course, but the ending to this film was great until the last few seconds. As I mentioned earlier, movies that keep themselves open for interpretation are great, but not every movie can pull it off. Again, this is one of those movies that cannot pull it off. The movie ends with a strange, vague ending that I wish had been cut out completely. It is basically five irrelevant seconds that were only there to screw with what the audience already perceived to be the ending. This can be good sometimes, but in this case, the ending should have been left as is. The audience doesn’t always want to be screwed with. Why the film wasn’t simply cut to the obvious ending is beyond me, but I don’t think it was a good decision.
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Rating: 6/10.
It is a decent movie. Definitely enjoyable, but it’s not what I would call a horror classic or even anything that got me too excited. It would easily be bumped up to a 6.5 if the reasoning to what led up to the whole point of the movie was better explained. Also, the ending was good until the last few seconds, which kind of ruined it for me.
If you’re interested in watching the film. Here’s the trailer:
