Witchy Woman

Rating: 6/10 (20 February 2016)

(RATING: ☆☆☆ out of 5)
THIS FILM IS MILDLY RECOMMENDED.
IN BRIEF: The Crucible meets The Shining meets Rosemary's Baby in Robert Eggers' well- received but wildly overrated debut film.
GRADE: C+
PLOT SUMMARY: Set in the 1600's, faith lends a shaky hand to a devout Christian patriarch and his family as they encounter strange occurrences in a small New England town. Labeled as heretics, the family is shunned by the community and settles near a dark forest with talks of witchcraft and other evil forces lurking about.
JIM'S REVIEW: While the film is called The Witch, it is its subtitle, A New England Folktale, that reveals more about writer / director Robert Eggers' first film. Folktales were originally cautionary tales told to impressionable children to forewarn them of the dangers in the real world. The film uses its time and setting most ingeniously, recalling the religious repression of that period and the mass hysteria associated with sin and witchcraft in a Puritan village. It has also garnered the awe of many impressionable critics as well. While this psychological thriller has some strong and disturbing imagery, it cannot hide the many illogical twists in the plot that are more evident after the film reaches its unsatisfying conclusion.
One is initially captivated by the story, production values, and acting as the film tells its tale of a family surviving on its own after being exiled by the community elders. There are strange satanic goings-on as they settle into the woods (a bad place to be in most fairy tale lore): daily fire and brimstone sermons from an arrogant shiftless father, William (Ralph Ineson), Katherine (Kate Dickie), a cold and hateful mother who seems more possessed than humanly possible, lustful glances by a confused son, Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw), Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), a pre-pubescent unhappy daughter, two creepy twins spouting evil talk, and a baby who goes missing. Nothing goes quite well for these outcasts.
The atmosphere is indeed moody and eerie, although the pacing of the film is in need of some stirring. Eggers is a solid director, and a talent that shows much promise. He creates a wonderful setting with much historical accuracy and his penchant for occasional surreal images with black birds, goats, wild rabbits, and subtle uses of blood to accentuate the perils surrounding the family are haunting and very effectively done.
The acting is uniformly strong. Mr. Ineson, sporting an anachronistic 21st century six-pack physique that could have tempted many a Puritan, handles the speechifying astutely and Ms. Dickie brings a sullen and disagreeable presence to her character, but it is the acting of the two younger members of the clan, namely Mr. Scrimshaw and Ms. Taylor-Joy who deliver the emotional connection needed to care about this stoic family and their creepy dilemmas.
Yet, as the story progresses and more and more supernatural things befall these victims, the leaps of logic become harder to accept. Mr. Eggers' script ultimately lets down the audience. His flair for visuals compensates for a lack of cohesiveness in his screenplay. There is also an over-reliance of heightened sound effects and atonal musical cues that telegraphs something wicked before it comes this way.
Just as folktales are themselves cautionary stories, The Witch may hold one's interest in its storytelling, but this reviewer must caution any moviegoer that this well-crafted tale will leave you more bothered or bewildered than bewitched.
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