The Front Room

Ugh, I wanted to like this movie so much more than I did. The acting was phenomenal, the storyline was good, but there just wasn't enough to the film? Like they started all these concepts, and I felt like they just kind of wrapped up the movie in a way where they were like "Ok, well, time is up!" Perhaps they did this on purpose to show the mental state of Belinda, but I felt like they put sort of this paranormal power into the mother when the baby would literally cry if the mom's necklace was not dangling in front of her. But was that actually the case or was Belinda's hatred towards the mom warping what was actually happening in front of her? This movie reminded me of the book Motherthing and the movie Mother! of just having that overbearing maternal figure going around the house and tormenting not only the actual mother but trying to take over the husband and baby's life as well. They didn't go into the weird relationship the woman had with Norman growing up enough to be like damn that was extremely fucked up. The breast-feeding part was gross, but other than that it was like yeah, ok, didn't we all grow up in abusive households? The mother was also a very interesting actress as in she was not really that scary, just very unsettling and deeply disturbed. I did like the ending where we find out that the mother had not died of natural causes like the movie first made it seem, but was actually killed by Belinda to save her sanity and family. The whole racism element should have been left completely out of the film or made more of a focus imo. Like it was just sort of this weird thing that they left over the audience's head as if it was a btw...she's also racist and that is another reason why she is trying to tear Norman and Belinda apart. I don't find myself really recommending this movie to anyone (which is a shame because I love a lot of A24 movies) but would I tell someone not to watch it at all? Nope! Go ahead and watch and see if you are a hater like me. 

IMDb rating: 4.7 out of 10 stars (honestly, that was sort of what I was expecting)

My rating: 5.5 out of 10 (sorry, Belinder!)