Family Secrets Destroy a Family Already on the Edge

Rating: 10/10 (8 January 2019)

Annie Graham (Toni Collette) is a wife and mother with a stable, much older husband, Steve (Gabriel Bryne) a pot smoking son in his mid teens named Peter (Alex Wolff) and a 13 year old withdrawn, unusual daughter named Charlie (Milly Shapiro). Annie and Charlie are both artists. Annie creates miniatures as a living and she even creates mini worlds of events in her life. Charlie, who barely talks and vocalizes like a chicken, makes little figurines out of discarded materials such as old bottles and even a dead bird's head. With the exception of a black dress to her maternal grandmother's funeral, Charlie wears a large orange hoodie and jeans.
The family trauma comes to a head when Annie's mother, Leigh dies. Annie had an unhappy home life as a child. Her father starved himself to death when she was a baby. Her brother, Charles whom Charlie was named after, hung himself in their mother's room when he was nephew Peter's age. His suicide note mentioned his mother trying to put people inside of him. His niece, Charlie was very close to her grandmother and is devastated by the loss. She clucks like a chicken, draws strange pictures in her notebook, and eats chocolate bars with a blank look on her face. Her parents have to make sure the chocolate has no nuts because of her nut allergy. Even though Annie loves Charlie and tries to help her emotionally after the funeral, Charlie wants the grandmother whom she had the unhealthy relationship with (i.e, Leigh breast fed Charlie and wanted her to be a boy).
More tragedy follows this poor family when Peter and Charlie go to a party. Charlie doesn't want to be there. Peter wants to smoke his really good weed and suggests Charlie have a piece of chocolate cake that is being offered. Unbeknownst to Peter and Charlie, there is an abhorrent amount of chopped nuts in the cake. Charlie eats the cake and has an immediate allergic reaction. Peter drives her like a bat out of hell to the emergency room. On the way, he swerved out of the way of a dead deer and hits a pole. Charlie dies when her head hits the pole and she is decapitated.
The family is paralyzed over Charlie's unnatural death. Annie is in a rage at Peter and Steve the stable one just wants things to go back to normal. That can't happen, though. Pre and post Charlie's death, Annie discovers her mom was involved in a cult that worshipped Paiman, a demon from hell who is interested in the arts and knowledge. Leigh was also artistic like her daughter and granddaughter. She embroidered welcome mats with the demon symbol on them. These mats also have the names of Annie and Charles on them and are beautiful!
Into all of this comes a kindly woman Annie met at a grief support meeting named Joan (Ann Dowd). Joan lost her son and little grandson in a drowning. She and Annie perform a seance and they communicate with Joan's grandson. Annie tries to communicate that way with Charlie but things don't go well! The fact the seance fails is an understatement! Joan is not what she seems to be! She was friends with Leigh and in the cult. The cult wants a male blood relative of Leigh's to house Paiman. Charlie's body was used to house the demon, but he didn't want a female body. They tried with Charles but he killed himself and Steve was out because he wasn't a blood relative.
In the end, the cult burns Steve up. They haul Leigh's headless body to the tree house Charlie spends time in and Annie cuts off her own head. Charlie's head is retrieved from the highway and placed on a wooden figure in the tree house. Peter throws himself out of window and is possessed by Paiman like his own mother was. He goes to the tree house and the naked cult members along with Joan crown him as Paiman.
This movie was quite a powerhouse! All the performers were excellent! Toni, Ann and Gabriel were all great and I thought the younger performers were awesome too! Milly Shapiro is so unlike the withdrawn Charlie in RL, it's unbelievable! Alex Wolff was also wonderful as Peter and I felt bad for him when he cried the way a little kid would! I recommend this movie highly! One thing I wasn't expecting was Judy Collins' lovely song "Both Sides Now" at the end!