The Front Room

Kathryn Hunter elevates everything she’s in, which goes double for a film as limp and directionless as The Front Room, the directorial debut of Max and Sam Eggers. A horror-thriller that might also be attempting comedy — it can be hard to tell — The Front Room begins with Belinda (Brandy) being forced to quit a job that undervalues her. She also has to contend with the mood swings of her husband Norman (Andrew Burnap). Then Norman’s eccentric stepmother re-enters their lives: Solange (Hunter), a self-professed psychic. She is meek and hunched over, uses two canes, and frequently soils herself — though she doesn’t let this stop her from overstepping Belinda’s personal boundaries.

What ought to be unnerving is mostly off-putting. The movie’s presentation is distant, and its animated, sitcom performances from Brandy and Burnap — which render Belinda and Norman broad and uninteresting — don’t match its attempted thrills. It also reads like the filmmakers don’t recognise when their premise verges on elder abuse. Solange screeches desperately when she needs to be changed, but little in the frame provides meaningful contrast to this helplessness, to make her seem like she might actually cause harm. It feels like half-baked horror. Belinda’s sleepwalking is matter-of-fact; her disturbing dreams are fleeting moments untethered from reality. There’s never any doubt in the viewer’s mind about what’s real or harmful.

Often veers into being embarrassing.

Hunter, however, lights up the screen with her captivating, hilariously cartoonish performance. While the movie plays like a comedy sketch about an ill-mannered in-law, Solange remains its only meaningfully interesting facet. The Front Room often veers into being embarrassing, but Hunter doesn’t mind embarrassing herself in turn by pratfalling, gesticulating wildly, and obstinately declaring — when she’s accused of racial bias — “I am a racist baby, goo goo ga ga!”

Perhaps a creepier, more subdued performance might have been a better fit with the story on paper, but for this to have worked, the film would have required top-down overhaul. As it is, it resembles an ill-conceived Get Out knock-off without a fraction of the insight into American racism. Given the awkward form The Front Room finally takes, Hunter is easily its highlight, and seems to know just how much to give — and how little restraint to show — in each and every scene. Unfortunately, her presence alone isn’t enough to rescue a movie that feels conceptually doomed.