Emily Mortimer, Robyn Nevin and Bella Heathcote play three generations of women whose family home is ruled by a sinister presence in Natalie Erika James' unsettling debut. Read the review of 'Relic': Sundance
A slow-burn haunted house movie becomes a disturbingly effective allegory for the ravages of dementia, which spreads like insidious rot from the afflicted into the family members witnessing her deterioration in. Natalie Erika James' assured first feature demonstrates bracing command of atmospherics, from its tenebrous visuals and labyrinthine production design to its nerve-jangling use of music and a thick soundscape stew of bumps, creaks, thuds and groans.
Rarely has the pulsing rainbow glow of Christmas tree lights in a dark house seemed so sinister as in the prologue here, those colors bouncing off an urn on the mantel that signals the presence of death from the start. Upstairs in the stately old home in a wooded area of regional Victoria, octogenarian Edna sits in a trance-like state in an overflowing bathtub, before next being seen naked downstairs, as if drawn by voices.
James and co-writer Christian White plant subtle hints of strain in Kay's relationship with her mother, who gives the impression of a once proud and still quite physically and emotionally formidable woman in Nevin's layered performance, while Sam clearly feels the purer, less burdened fondness of a granddaughter. The various gradations of intergenerational bonds among the three women are astutely observed both in the writing and in the nuanced work of the three leads.
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