I'm not going to lie, I am massively hungover today and I just wanted to watch a random horror film and veg out a little bit. I stumbled across 'Braid' (2018) (or 'Nobody Leaves' as it was called on Now TV) which from the initial image and short synopsis seemed to fit the bill. I thought it was going to be a standard home invasion turns to game of torture film and most importantly it was only 82 minutes long. Little did I know that I was actually about to watch a film that is incredibly stylised, a little nonsensical and a bit of a mind fuck. The film follows two friends, Petula Thames (Imogen Waterhouse) and Tilda Darlings (Sarah Hay), who are on the run after being caught in a drug bust. In dept and needing money they decide to rob their old childhood friend, Daphne Peters (Madeline Brewer), who is psychotic and obsessed with a fantasy game they played when they were children. In order to steal the money Petula and Tilda need to play along with this game which has become much more deadly and psychological.
This is a film where the the description of style over substance fits perfectly. There is a vague narrative to the film, but it is completely overshadowed by the style of the film. This isn't always a bad thing. The focus on the style does lead to a lot of really stunning visuals throughout and the use of lighting and colour is often times quite beautiful. The film also has brilliant production design and some of the sets are truly stunning to look at. It was really reminiscent of Dario Argento's 'Suspiria' (1977) which is a film whose visual style I love and so I was never going to complain on that level. The problem is that the film sometimes feels like it is being stylish for the sake of it. Yes, there are some beautiful scenes and sometimes the use of dutch angles and upside down shots does add to the paranoia and madness of the film, but most of the time it does come across as self indulgent and being stylish so that the audience will sit up and notice the direction. The style is often times at the expense of the narrative, which towards the end of the film did become illogical and nonsensical. But for a film that does put style over substance the style does hit more times than it misses and the lack of a cohesive narrative didn't really bother me all that much. If anything I found it quite an intriguing watch and can definitely see myself coming back to it at some point.
The performances in the film are also a bit odd. Like a lot of the rest of the film I can't really tell if they were good or not. I am leaning towards them being good, but I don't know if that is because I was just so distracted by the style that I didn't really notice. Madeline Brewer's performance is probably the most memorable of the three central actors. As Daphne she needs to be both intimidating and believably insane and it is 50/50 whether she succeeds or not. There are moments in the film where her madness does seem quite believable and I really bought into it and there are other times where she went a little to far with it and strayed into being quite hammy. Sarah Hay puts in a performance at the other end of the spectrum. She is quite monotone and straight faced for large portions of the film and there are a couple of her line reads that aren't all that great, but she is good when she starts to tip into madness. Imogen Waterhouse has quite a ranged performance. She starts the film portraying this confident and strong character who is seemingly the more authoritative of Petula and Tilda. But as the film continues and she starts to lose her mind she becomes a much weaker character, falling into herself and becoming a shell of how she started the film and I feel like Imogen Waterhouse captures this character progression really well. She has a believable descent into madness and when the twist is revealed at the end her reaction seems genuine and real. I mean the twist itself is dumb and not set up all that well but her performance for it is good.
'Braid' is a proper oddball film and nothing like what I expected when I pressed play. I expected a run of the mill horror film and instead what I got was a film that was uber stylised and a bit of a narrative mess. Yes the film is often times nonsensical and the narrative defineitely takes a back seat to the style, but I enjoyed the style enough to keep me interested. There are sometimes where the style does feel like it has been put in for the sake of it and feels a bit self indulgent, but for the most part it is often times a beautiful film. If nothing else it is a film that intrigued me and one that I will probably revisit, but at the same time I'm struggling to really recommend it. It is a bit of an enigma of a film in that way.