By way of further forays in psychosexual pathology, there's "The Truth About Emanuel," a thriller by Italian-American director Francesca Gregorini. Its original title was evidently "Emanuel and the Truth about Fishes," but it might better have been called "Up All Night with the Living Dead Baby."
Emanuel is a very troubled, very sullen and very abrasive teen who lives with her father and stepmother. Into their affluent neighborhood moves mysterious Linda, who has a newborn babe and who bears a striking resemblance to Emanuel's own deceased mother. Much intrigued, Emanuel offers to baby-sit, thus entering -- and soon overidentifying with and controlling -- Linda's delicately balanced world.
Or is it unbalanced?
At its heart is an unbelievably creepy-looking infant -- either a real baby that looks like a weird doll or an amazing doll that looks weirdly realistic. Is it dead or alive? Or could there be two babies?
In the title role, Kaya Scodelario replaced Rooney Mara (who was no fool to get out of this project). She's capable enough, as are Frances O'Connor and Alfred Molina (as her parents) and Jessica Biel (as Linda).
Director Gregorini sees it as "a haunting dance between sorrow and fantasy ... born of my subconscious, my demons ... capturing the interplay between fear and seduction ... layered with subtext and mood, yet flexible enough to stretch its wings into magical realism."
Yes, well ... That's a pretty overstuffed omelet. There are some scarily effective moments, but in the end it's an overwrought exercise in ersatz suspense -- cinema therapeutica --which overwhelmed some at Sundance but underwhelmed me.
The cemetery symmetry of the ending comes with more chuckles than goosebumps.
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