Grace (2009)

American independent cinema, ie movies funded outside the Hollywood machine, is by definition a category.  However, due to such films created by the likes of John Cassavetes, Spike Lee and Steven Soderbergh, the category should be rebranded as genre: Indie Film.

Indie Film shares the same parameters as American independent films in that its financing is (for the greater part) non-Hollywood.  Beyond that commonality, there is separation of quality and intent.  Indie Film reflects a style of personal storytelling.  It provokes and challenges and entertains in its simplicity, sometimes magnificence, and always austere budgetary constraints.  It is Shadows, Do The Right Thing, Sex Lies and Videotape.  It is Night of the Living Dead, The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity.  It reminds the world that America’s got talent.

Grace is the story of a newborn and its mother.  The premise is lifted from Rosemary’s Baby.  Another film released this year – It’s Alive – also used that premise.  Rosemary’s Baby is more than a reference point for this type of movie – it is the archetype.

It’s Alive failed.

Grace begins with the act of copulation.  Madeline stares at ceiling while her partner gyrates and groans atop her in the most pathetic way.  Sex is not a spectator sport.  The adult entertainment industry knows this – that’s why they include special effects.  The male removes himself.  Madeline lifts her knees to her chest, holds her shins and waits.  What she’s doing has something to do with gravity and drainage.  She wants a baby.  She doesn’t have to enjoy the making of it.

Her mother-in-law is a shrew; well-to-do, middle class, better-than-thou.  She’s better than Madeline.  She disapproves of her.  She’s used to bullying her spineless husband, and she dotes on her spineless son.  The battle lines are clear, if not yet drawn: the two women are going to war over this baby when it’s born.  Before that, they war over the pregnancy.  Madeline is going to see a midwife.  Mother-in-law Vivian is horrified (“There’s a reason people have babies in hospitals”).

The midwife is a new age dominant homosexual who eats vegan cookies.  “Mothers are three to six times more likely to die in a hospital than a midwife supervised clinic or homebirth.”  She’s a bully too: a false alarm has Madeline rushed to hospital.  There, Vivian’s henchman, Dr. Sohn, attempts to induce the 31-week-old fetus.  Midwife Patty storms in to tongue-lash the men and save the baby.  She’s a good bully.

This is a film about women.

The drive back from the hospital has been set up but not contrived.  The accident is fatal.  Husband dies.  Baby dies.  Madeline refuses to be induced.  She’ll deliver her (dead) baby naturally.

Three weeks later, Patty delivers the baby in a paddling pool.  Madeline holds the corpse the way a baboon holds its slain offspring.  Patty and her staff leave the mother alone with her grief.  Patty watches Madeline on CCTV.  When she can bear no more, she goes back to the birthing room.  There, Madeline is holding her suckling baby.

Baby Grace.

What kind of baby can survive dead in the womb for three weeks?

The excellence of this motion picture is the relationship between Madeline and Vivian.  It is Vivian who is the unsung victim.  She’s lost her son, but she will not be denied her granddaughter.  The character is essentially a gargoyle, but actress Gabrielle Rose turns her into a tragedy.  The bereavement over her son and the estrangement of her grandbaby evoke her disturbing behaviour.  She tries to fight Madeline on the widow’s terms.  Despite Vivian’s power and wealth, she does not have a young woman’s body.  It’s enough to turn an aging woman mad, if not evil.  Witness her scene with Dr Sohn: It is long shot cinematic flourish and stylized dialogue.

The new mother Madeline is as ferocious as legend in protecting her baby.  The single mother Madeline cannot cope with the pressure of lone parenthood.  The pretty girl looks rough. Her house is a mess.  Is she unfit?

This film is creepier than it is horror.  The tone is similar to that of the 2007 Joshua.  It is clipped and even with a relaxed, steady pace.  However, what Grace has is a soaring denouement.  From the moment Madeline lets Dr. Sohn into the house, two sequences occur that equal and/or surpass anything in a thriller.  Shame the movie didn’t end there.

Regardless, Grace is one of the better films of 2009 and one of the best horror films.  Had this film been made in Europe or Asia, Hollywood would deem it worthy of a remake.  They’re going to remake Let the Right One In.  They reportedly will remake Rosemary’s Baby.  I deem it worthy of a wide re-release in 2010.  It won’t happen, but it will stand the test of time just like (the original) The Wicker Man and be discovered by a new generation.  It’s that good.

It is Indie Film.

(This review of Grace is printed with kind permission of Thrill Fiction.)

You can buy a copy of Grace on DVD for less than $20 at Amazon.com. We’ll get a tiny referral fee if you do.