Digital Review: Kindred (2020)

The faded family pile, reeking of past glories: the vulnerable pregnant woman under threat: sinister birds silently watching from the window sill. Some of the most familiar thriller/horror tropes in the book – we can all think of films where they’ve been used to great effect – and which provide the biggest pieces in the psychological jigsaw that is Joe Marcantonio’s debut feature, Kindred. Even the title sounds like it’s trying to sum up the storyline – and it doesn’t do a bad job.

Charlotte (Tamara Lawrance) and partner Ben (Edward Holcroft) have decided to move to Australia for a fresh start, much to the displeasure of his domineering mother Margaret (Fiona Shaw), who lives in the crumbling family mansion with stepson Thomas (Jack Lowden). Charlotte’s unexpected pregnancy makes them even more determined to stick to their plans, although memories of her mother’s post partem depression make her reluctant to have the baby. But when a horrific accident leaves her on her own, the family offer her a home in what seems an act of kindness, one that she increasingly views with suspicion and mounting fear.

Struggling to cope with shock and grief, along with the emotional and physical turmoil of pregnancy, means Charlotte is weak and vulnerable almost from the start, putting her at the mercy of the controlling Margaret and creepy family GP Dr Richards (Anton Lesser, complete with dapper bow tie). Let’s pause. Parallels with classic horror Rosemary’s Baby are looming large and, while there are similarities, there’s no devil worship going on here, nor is the imminent baby demonic in any way – not as far as the scans show, anyway. The shabby, dusty mansion and Fiona Shaw’s (such a scene stealer in Killing Eve) malevolent presence takes us straight into Daphne Du Maurier territory, to the extent that you wonder why on earth nobody has ever cast her as Mrs Danvers in Rebecca. In fact, the narrative as a whole is easily melodramatic enough to have been created by Cornwall’s favourite author, so the Hitchcock style birds are completely at home as well.

But it’s a film stuck somewhere in the no-man’s land between horror and thriller. There’s none of the jump scares, gore or supernatural that you expect of the first, nor is there the white-knuckle suspense that goes with the second. But Marcantonio’s a dab hand at building a sense of foreboding – a morose cello soundtrack helps – and he’s given the otherwise traditional set-up a modern angle. Charlotte is uneasy as soon as she sets foot in the mansion, with its portraits of white ancestors. It represents a lifestyle at odds with her own and the likelihood of wealth built on the labours of her predecessors. She’s under extreme emotional pressure. But are her growing fears for her own safety, and the future of her baby, symptoms that she suffers from the same condition as her mother?

While Kindred tries to give your nerves a vigorous jangle, it doesn’t come as close as it should. All those similarities with other films are too much of a distraction and undermine its efforts. Much more successful are the three central performances – Lawrence fighting grief, haunting dreams and what she sees as her kidnapping, Lowden obsequious and uncomfortably wide eyed and the ever-watchable Shaw, who skilfully avoids turning Margaret into an out-and-out ogre. Despite the film’s descent into near-farcical melodrama in the second half, all three hold on to your attention, even when the narrative makes you wonder why you’re still watching.