YOUR SAVIOR IS COMING.
Fiercely religious nurse Maud (Morfydd Clark) has been assigned to a terminally ill dancer, Amanda Köhl (Jennifer Ehle), and comes to believe that her mission is to save Amanda’s soul. Rose Glass’s unpleasant directing debut lets us share the protagonist’s perspective and religious visions in a dark, foreboding way, a peek inside a sick mind that’s leading her mercilessly toward disaster. The corporeal aspects of Maud’s work, tending to Amanda’s physical needs, also becomes an effective part of the horror. Boosted by a convincing performance by Clark as a Joan of Arc figure, on a crusade only she can understand.
2019-Britain. 84 min. Color. Widescreen. Produced by Andrea Cornwell, Oliver Kassman. Written and directed by Rose Glass. Cast: Morfydd Clark (Maud), Jennifer Ehle (Amanda Köhl), Lily Knight (Joy), Lily Frazer, Turlough Convery, Rosie Sansom.
Last word: “I’m not too fussed about the genre question anymore. We had a lot of discussions about that whilst developing it, but I don’t think I consciously thought of it as a horror film. But I always knew that it would be heightened and stylized and not super naturalistic, or maybe even realistic. One of my producers, when he first read the treatment I put together, said, ‘Oh, this feels like a horror film.’ I kind of went, ‘Okay.’ [It] didn’t change how I was thinking about it too much.” (Glass, Elle)
