Alice Krige in “She Will”
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How much satisfaction is derived from director Charlotte Colbert’s “She Will” depends, in significant part, on your response to the opening credit. “Dario Argento Presents,” the title card reads. Should the name ring a bell, you’ll likely purchase a ticket and consider it money well spent. Should mention of Mr. Argento occasion head-scratching — well, that’s a whole ’nother kettle of fish.
Dario Argento is a filmmaker all but born to cult status. Over the past half century, he’s established himself as a post-Hitchcockian auteur — and the progenitor of giallo, a genre best described as the Italian variant of film noir except with more blood, more gloss, and more extravagance. Films like “Suspiria” and “Tenebrae” have garnered a fan base among cineastes who prize sensationalism and sensibility over the niceties of character and narrative.
This may be the reason Mr. Argento signed on as executive producer of “She Will.” The film is more than comfortable abandoning logic for some florid symbolic detours. Ms. Colbert has crafted a #MeToo revenge fantasy in which passing nods to “the male gaze” evince her Fine Arts pedigree, and otherworldly portent underlines a New Age feminism. “The spirits of women past are thanked in the credits,” the director writes, “as perhaps they were the ones to whisper this dream or nightmare to us.”
The locus of “She Will” is Veronica Ghent (Alice Krige), an actress of a certain age for whom the movies have only gotten smaller. Veronica is, in fact, as stand-offish and imposing as Norma Desmond and, pace Greta Garbo, intent on being let alone. Having just undergone a double mastectomy, she travels to a remote Scottish outpost in order to recuperate. Avoiding the press and paparazzi is high on the agenda.
Veronica has been in the news. The movie that made her a star at age 13, “Navajo Frontier,” is being remade some 50 years after the fact. In one scene, we see the cover of a tabloid gossip sheet that highlights “The Shocking Change!” between Veronica “THEN” and “NOW!” The remake is being helmed by Eric Hathbourne (Malcolm McDowell), the director of the original film and, in an apercu that is foretold by a country mile, the abuser of young Veronica.
Veronica’s journey to the backwoods is, much to her chagrin, populated by all and sundry. She’s accompanied by Desi (Kota Eberhardt), a nurse endowed with infinite patience and a punky ’do. If Desi’s consideration and care aren’t irksome enough, the old, dark house in which Veronica has booked her retreat is rife with a hodgepodge of eccentrics straight out of an Ealing Studios comedy. Chief among them is their host, Tirador (an unrecognizable Rupert Everett), who, among other fripperies, extols cremated human remains as a drawing medium.
At which point, “She Will” goes off the rails in a spectacularly operatic fashion. Mud swells and churns with nefarious intent. Ash floats through the air with preternatural grace. Attractive groundskeepers and wiry maintenance men pop up at inopportune moments, and nature documentaries about glutinous bugs seem to be on every TV. Witchcraft is invoked, as are travels through time and space. All the while, Veronica’s nightmares turn into dreams — of a sort.
“She Will” is one hot mess of a picture. As a horror movie it favors atmosphere over anything particularly scary; as a political treatise, it overstates its hand from the get-go; as a commentary on the gross violations of male prerogative, it makes one pine for the unnerving insinuations of “The Assistant.” Still and all, the movie benefits from Ms. Krige’s regal presence, the luxuriant cinematography of Jamie D. Ramsay, and, yes, the director’s effusive indulgences.
Were this film any more consistent it wouldn’t be quite as involving. Whether Ms. Colbert can sustain a career out of achievements as careening as “She Will” is one of the more curious trajectories to keep one’s eye on.
(c) 2022 Mario Naves
This article was originally published in the July 14, 2022 edition of The New York Sun.
Too Much Art 