Emily Watson Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘The Legend of Ochi,’ starring Helena Zengel, Finn Wolfhard, Emily Watson and Willem Dafoe

April 18, 2025

by Carla Hay

Baby Ochi and Helena Zengel in “The Legend of Ochi” (Photo courtesy of A24)

Directed by Isaiah Saxon

Culture Representation: Taking place on the fictional island of Carpathia, the fantasy film “The Legend of Ochi” features a cast of working-class human characters and monkey-like creatures called Ochi.

Culture Clash: After a hunting attack separates a male baby Ochi from his mother, a teenage girl rescues the baby Ochi and goes on a quest to reunite the baby with his mother at the same time the girl looks for her estranged mother.

Culture Audience: “The Legend of Ochi” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and are interested in uncomplicated family-friendly entertainment where magical creatures are big parts of the story.

Willem Dafoe and Finn Wolfhard in “The Legend of Ochi” (Photo courtesy of A24)

“The Legend of Ochi” isn’t quite the epic adventure that this fantasy movie’s title implies. It’s a simple and sentimental story about woodland creatures, lonely humans, and family reunions with obstacles. The creature puppetry steals the show. Although there’s competent acting from the cast members, the movie’s biggest flaw is that not enough information is given about many of the characters and the island they inhabit.

Written and directed by Isaiah Saxon, “The Legend of Ochi” is his feature-film debut. The movie had its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Saxon has a background in directing music videos and short films. At times, “The Legend of Ochi” looks like it could have been a short film, because there are parts of the movie that could have been removed and it wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the story.

“The Legend of Ochi” takes place on the fictional island of Carpathia, which is in an Eastern European country that is not named. The people in the movie speak with a range of accents that sound German, Russian, and everything in between. “The Legend of Ochi” was actually filmed in Romania in the Carpathian Mountains region.

In the production notes for “The Legend of Ochi,” Saxon says that Chinese golden snub-nosed monkeys were the main inspiration for how the Ochi creatures look in the film. The Ochi might also remind people of how the gremlins look in the “Gremlins” movies before the gremlins transform into monsters when doused with water.

Later in the movie, it’s explained that Ochi are mysterious creatures who hide in the woods. They communicate by making siren calls that sound a lot like the combination of a monkey screeching and a bird cooing. It’s later explained in the movie that when Ochi creatures talk in a collective chorus, the sound is magical and powerful.

“The Legend of Ochi” begins with exposition-dump narration from the movie’s protagonist: a girl named Yuri (played by Helena Zengel), who’s about 15 or 16 years old. Yuri is the only biological child of a pompous and domineering man named Maxim (played by Willem Dafoe), who lives with Yuri and her adopted brother Petro (played by Finn Wolfhard), on a farm. Petro, who is about 17 or 18 years old, was adopted by Maxim when Petro became an orphan at age 14.

Petro is conflicted between being loyal to Maxim or loyal to rebellious Yuri. There are also seven boys (ranging in ages from about 10 to about 14 years old) who have been entrusted in Yuri’s care by the boys’ families so Yuri can teach the boys how to hunt and become self-sufficient with military-styled training. The boys spend a lot of time with Maxim inside and outside the household, but he is not their adoptive father. Petro gets training along with the boy, but because Petro is more experienced than the younger boys, Maxim expects Petro to be a role model to the younger boys.

In the movie’s opening narration, Yuri has this to say about her life: “I was born on a small island in the Black Sea. Most people here live right from the land. It’s how we’ve always survived. For a long time, nothing much changed here. But things are starting to feel different. People say it’s a dangerous place. There are bears and wolves. And something else—something people feel is much worse.”

She is then seen going to a library and getting a 1992 book titled “Carpathian Beasts & Demons.” (The movie doesn’t specify what year the story takes place, but it appears to be in the early 1990s, before smartphones and social media existed.) Inside the book, there are illustrations of the Ochi as demon-like creatures. The illustrations indicate that humans have been battling Ochi for centuries.

Yuri continues in her narration: “For as long as I’ve known, I’ve fought them. I’ve never seen one myself, but I’ve heard them at night by going down from the mountain. I still don’t know the whole story. But since I was 4 years old, the one thing I knew for sure is that it destroyed my family.”

Maxim has repeatedly told Yuri that Yuri’s mother Dasha (played by Emily Watson) abandoned the family. Maxim also forbids Yuri from trying to find Dasha. “I’m going to find her!” Yuri shouts at Maxim during an argument at the family dining table.

The village where Yuri lives is a mixture of ancient and modern. People travel by horse-drawn carriages, but people also travel by car. Yuri lives on a farm and the people in the community “live off of the land,” but there are also contemporary grocery stores in the area.

Yuri lives in a household that does not have a TV or a computer. Her main connection to the outside world is music that she listens to on headphones. Her father and other people in the community are very religious. However, Yuri seems to be in defiance of her strict religious upbringing because she listens to death metal music.

One of the movie’s first scenes shows Maxim taking Yuri and some of his boy trainees into the woods for a nighttime hunting expedition. The purpose is to find and kill Ochi. “The Legend of Ochi” raises questions that the movie never bothers to answer. The biggest question is “Why are Ochi considered such a threat to humans?”

Another clue is a quick glimpse early on in the movie that shows a herder of Highland cows in a field. One of the cows is dead and appears to have been mauled by an unknown animal. Considering that there are wolves in the area, a wolf could have killed this cow. But the movie constantly shows that Ochi seem to be blamed and feared as the worst creatures and enemies of humans living on Carpathia.

Yuri mentions that there are wolves and bears in the area, but these wolves and bears are never seen in the movie. Based on what’s seen in the movie, the Ochi do not kill people, but people have been taught that Ochi will kill people. There is a curfew at night to avoid being near Ochi, who are mostly nocturnal creatures.

The only animals the Ochi are actually seen eating are insects. Humans don’t kill Ochi for food. Humans hunt Ochi simply because Ochi have been described for centuries as “predators” of humans. The point that the movie seems to be making is that if mythology is told enough times and for an extended period of time, people will believe it.

Yuri is the first person in her family to seriously question what she’s been taught about the Ochi creatures. During that nighttime hunting trip to kill Ochi, several of them are seen by Maxim and his squad of young people. Maxim orders them to shoot as many Ochi as they can. Luckily, none of the Ochi gets wounded. But in the chaos, a male baby Ochi gets separated from his mother. Maxim and his squad go home.

The next morning in a barn, Maxim gives a lecture to Yuri and the boys by telling them, “Last night was beautiful,” even if they didn’t hit any of their targets. Maxim warns them the demon is still upon them. “We are cursed with a wickedness.” And he tells them they must all give their hearts to “the cause.”

The isolation that Yuri feels in this male-dominated environment is obvious and doesn’t seem to faze Maxim. During this lecture in the barn, Yuri is crouched quietly on a perch, while the boys are gathered in unity around Maxim. He mentions the problems in some of the boys’ families (such as alcoholism, mental illness, poverty) that led these boys’ families to give Maxim the responsibility of looking after them. “You are all my sons,” Maxim says as he tells them he expects obedience and loyalty from them.

The boys who are not Petro barely talk or don’t talk at all. Their names are Ivan (played by Răzvan Stoica), Oleg (played by Carol Borș), Vlad (played by Andrei Antoniu Anghel), Gleb (played by David Andrei Bălțatu), Pavel (played by Eduard Oancea), Tudor (played by Tomas Otto Ghela) and Edi (played by Eduard Ionut Cucu), whose personalities are blank slates. In fact, the only people in the movie who have significant lines of dialogue are Yuri, Maxim, Petro and Dasha. As already revealed in “The Legend of Ochi” trailer, Dasha is a pivotal character in the film.

The night after the hunting trip, Yuri goes back to the area in the woods where Ochi creatures were seen. And that’s when she sees the lost male baby Ochi, who has a leg caught in one of the traps that Maxim and his squad set in the words. Yuri sets the baby free, and it runs away in fear. However, Yuri manages to coax Baby Ochi into a backpack and takes Baby Ochi home and hides it in her bedroom.

Yuri treats Baby Ochi’s leg wound. And slowly, Yuri and Baby Ochi learn to trust each other. One of their first bonding experiences is when Yuri shows Baby Ochi a caterpillar from her vivarium. When Yuri sees that the Ochi doesn’t hurt the caterpillar, she quickly figures out that Ochi are not as dangerous as she’s been told they are.

Although Yuri is lonely and wants to keep Baby Ochi as her friend, she knows the right thing to do is to return Baby Ochi back to his family. It isn’t long before Yuri (who is very unhappy living with Maxim) decides to run away from home to find Ochi’s family and to find her mother Dasha. Predictably, when Maxim finds out that Yuri has run away from home and has an Ochi with her, there’s a “race against time” hunt when Maxim and the boys go looking for them.

For an unknown reason, Maxim is dressed as a gladiator when he goes on a hunting mission. It seems to be the movie’s way of showing Maxim’s over-the-top, bombastic personality. Dafoe portrays Maxim almost at cartoonish levels, but the character becomes a little bit more grounded in the last third of the movie.

The Ochi, which are combination of puppetry and visual effects, have wonderfully expressive faces and a combination of intelligence and empathy. Baby Ochi is quite simply adorable and is by far the most charming character in the movie. Some viewers might not like the “cuteness” that the Ochi bring to the movie, but other viewers will welcome it once it becomes obvious that “The Legend of Ochi” is a sweet-natured family film and not an edgy movie.

That doesn’t mean it’s a perfect movie. A few scenes are very awkward and nonsensical. For example, after Yuri has run away with Baby Ochi, she goes into a supermarket to get (steal) some food. Even though she hides Baby Ochi in her backpack, he makes himself known when he reaches for some eggs, and some people in the store see him. Customers scream and run in fear.

That’s not what’s odd and ridiculous about this scene. What’s odd and ridiculous is that during this panic, a cashier takes out a shotgun that he had stashed near the cash register and starts shooting at Yuri and Baby Ochi. Who does that to an unarmed kid? Yuri gets away with Ochi in a rolling cart and crashes through the front window with the cart when store employees lock the front doors. She then steals a car in the parking lot because the car just happens to have the keys in the ignition.

None of this is really spoiler information because “The Legend of Ochi” is the type of movie where you can tell how it’s going to end the minute that Yuri runs away from home. The movie’s trailer also reveals that Yuri suddenly and inexplicably begins to understand the Ochi language, so she begins communicating with Ochi in this language, which is subtitled in the movie. The parallels between Yuri and Baby Ochi are obvious because this is a story about a child wanting to be reunited with the child’s mother, despite forces who don’t want this reunion to happen.

The movie’s performances are capable, although “The Legend of Ochi” doesn’t explain a lot of things about Yuri and her family. It should come as no surprise that Dasha has a very different version of why she stopped living with Maxim and Yuri. Dasha’s story of how she lost her left hand (which has been replaced with a wooden prosthetic) indicates that this family’s history is very dark and troubled.

Watson gives the best performance of the cast members, as is often the case with any her projects. It’s too bad that the character of Dasha is in less than half of the movie. Zengel is convincing as introverted teen Yuri, but she mumbles some of her lines. Wolfhard doesn’t have much to do as Petro, the quasi-mediator between the feuding Yuri and Maxim.

“The Legend of Ochi” has excellent cinematography by Evan Prosofsky and has some heart-tugging moments (including an emotion-stirring music score by Evan Prosofsky) that will either endear or irritate viewers. The movie follows a lot of familiar formulas but has a positive message (without getting preachy) about showing compassion for those who are misunderstood and mistreated. Despite the movie’s flaws, the story can’t be faulted for this overall impactful message.

A24 released “The Legend of Ochi” in select U.S. cinemas on April 18, 2025, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on April 25, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on May 20, 2025. “The Legend of Ochi” will be released on Blu-ray on July 8, 2025.

Review: ‘Small Things Like These,’ starring Cillian Murphy, Eileen Walsh, Michelle Fairley, Clare Dunn, Helen Behan and Emily Watson

November 8, 2024

by Carla Hay

“Small Things Like These”

Directed by Tim Mielants

Culture Representation: Taking place in 1985, with some to the 1950s, in New Ross, Ireland, the dramatic film “Small Things Like These” (based on the novel of the same name) features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A coal delivery driver, who was raised in a convent, has his past come back to haunt him when he discovers dark secrets about the convent.

Culture Audience: “Small Things Like These” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and dramas abut religion having major influences in people’s lives.

Cillian Murphy and Zara Devlin in “Small Things Like These” (Photo by Enda Bowe/Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions)

“Small Things Like These” is a worthy adaptation of the novel of the same name. This meditative drama has slow pacing but many moments of hard-hitting realities about how a convent’s dark secrets affect generations of people in a small Irish community. “Small Things Like These” had its world premiere at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival.

Directed by Tim Mielants and written by Edna Walsh, “Small Things Like These” is adapted from Claire Keegan’s 2020 novel of the same name. It’s an intimate story that speaks to larger issues of abuse in religious institutions that often control or dictate how people live. Although the movie has fictional characters, their experiences are what untold numbers of people have experienced in real life.

“Small Things Like These” takes place primarily in 1985, in the small rural town of New Ross, Ireland. (The movie was filmed in the Irish cities of Wexford, Wicklow and Dublin.) Bill Furlong (played by Cillian Murphy, one of the producers of “Small Things Like These”) is a happily married father of five daughters, ranging from primary school age to high school age. His wife Eileen Furlong (played by Eileen Walsh) is a kind and optimistic homemaker.

Bill works as a coal delivery driver. He is a well-respected member of the community and he’s known as a “regular guy” who lives an unassuming, low-key life. Later, the coal stains that he has to wash off when he comes home from work later become symbolic of the stains of bad memories from hs past that he tries to wash from his psyche.

Bill doesn’t live too far from the Good Shepherd Convent, where he was raised as a child. The Catholic nuns who operate the convent often have teenage girls living there to help them with their work as unpaid employees. The girls who are sent to the convent are considered “wayward” girls who end up at the convent as punishment or simply because the girls have nowhere else to go.

The Catholic Church and this convent are powerfully influential in this community for many reasons, including being the main source of school education. Bill’s eldest daughter Kathleen (played by Liadán Dunlea) has been educated by the convent’s nuns at the local high school. Bill’s other daughters—Joan Furlong (played by Agnes O’Casey), Sheila Furlong (played by Rachel Lynch), Grace Furlong (played by Aoife Gaffney) and Loretta Furlong (played by Faye Brazil)—also plan to attend the same high school.

One day, Bill is outside when he sees a teenage girl named Sarah Redmond (played by Zara Devlin) arrive at the convent with her unnamed mother (played by Sarah Morris), who is practically forcing Sarah into the building. Sarah is fighting and resisting her mother every step of the way and screaming that she doesn’t want to go. Sarah is quickly taken into the building.

Bill sees Sarah again a few days later when he finds her hiding in his shed because she has run away from the convent. Bill doesn’t know what else to do but to return her to the convent, which is under the domineering rule of Sister Mary (played by Emily Watson), the convent’s mother superior, whose calm exterior masks a cruel and abusive personality. Bill can’t help but feel uneasy about Sarah’s obvious desperate unhappiness and unwillingness to live at the convent.

After witnessing these disturbing incidents with Sarah, Bill experiences a flood of memories and emotions about his own mother, whose name was Sarah Furlong (played by Agnes O’Casey), who was an unwed teenager when she had Bill. Sarah is now deceased but there are several flashbacks to when she was a teenager and in a relationship with the teen who was Bill’s biological father Ned (played by Mark McKenna). Bill also has visions of himself (played by Louis Kirwan) when he was about 9 or 10 years old.

Through conversations in the movie and these flashbacks/visions, viewers find out that Bill never knew who his biological father was when Bill was growing up. As a child, he lived for a while with a widow Mrs. Wilson (played by Michelle Fairley), most likely in a foster care situation. Bill’s mother Sarah disappeared or died under mysterious circumstances. There’s a scene where boyhood Bill asks Mrs. Wilson, “Do you think my father knows what happened?” Mrs. Wilson replies, “I don’t know.”

Bill begins to wonder what’s really going on in the convent. A local shop owner named Mrs. Kehoe (played by Helen Behan), who is knowledgeable about some of the town’s secrets, warns Bill not to be an antagonist to the people who operate the convent. “If you go making a nuisance of yourself,” she tells Bill, “you could be denying your children of an education.”

If you’ve seen enough of these types of movies, then you will be easily able to figure out how all these clues and fragmented memories add up to a horrifying truth. Murphy gives an admirably understated performance as someone thinks he’s had an uncomplicated life, but the memories that come flooding back indicate that he has had some past trauma because of his mother being an unwed teen mother in this very religious community.

Watson (who won the Best Supporting Actress Award at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival) gives an unsettling performance as Sister Mary, who is convinced that abuse can be justified in the name of religion. Sister Mary is the worst type of villain: someone who appears to be harmless but in reality causes a great deal of harm.

“Small Things Like These” is true to its title by not being a sweeping epic about people with big personalities getting justice for crimes and other wrongdoings. It’s a story about people who want to live quiet, ordinary lives and might feel overwhelmed by the scope of abuse that they know about or experience. They might not seek justice in the court system but they make a difference through small acts of kindness to people who need it the most.

Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions released “Small Things Like These” in U.S. cinemas on November 8, 2024. The movie was released in Ireland and the United Kingdom on November 1, 2024.

Review: ‘God’s Creatures,’ starring Emily Watson and Paul Mescal

October 22, 2022

by Carla Hay

“God’s Creatures”

Directed by Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed rural village in Ireland, the dramatic film “God’s Creatures” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class.

Culture Clash: A woman who manages her family’s oyster farm has to decide how loyal she wants to be to her son after he’s accused of raping one of her employees, and she tells a lie to create an alibi for him.

Culture Audience: “God’s Creatures” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of star Emily Watson and well-acted movies about moral dilemmas.

Aisling Franciosi in “God’s Creatures” (Photo courtesy of A24)

Despite its slow pacing, “God’s Creatures” is a very effective psychological drama that brings up ethical questions about family loyalty and dealing with sexual assault. Emily Watson gives an emotionally stirring performance as a conflicted mother who has to reckon with her own responsibility in possibly covering up a serious crime. It’s a movie that shows why denial can be just as toxic as a criminal act.

Directed by Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer, “God’s Creatures” (written by Shane Crowley) was filmed on location in County Donegal, Ireland. It’s here, in an unnamed fishing village, that Aileen O’Hara (played by Watson) thinks she’s living an uncomplicated life that revolves around her work and her family. Aileen has been happily married to her husband Con (played by Declan Conlon) for about 35 years. Together, they own an oyster farm, where Aileen works as a manager of the oyster processing plant. Con mainly supervises the oyster fishermen.

Aileen and Con have two children: Erin O’Sullivan (played by Toni O’Rourke) and Brian O’Hara (played by Paul Mescal), who are opposites in many ways. Erin, who has lived in the village her entire life, is in her 30s and is a single mother to an infant son. Brian, who is in his mid-to-late 20s, is a freewheeling bachelor with no children. For the past seven years, Brian lived in Australia and had stopped contacting his family. Near the beginning of the movie, Brian suddenly shows up in the village and expects to pick up right where he left off before he moved away to Australia.

The father of Erin’s baby is not in Erin’s life and won’t be involved in raising the child. Erin knows that many people in the community are religious and politically conservative. And therefore, she’s aware that being a single mother who is not widowed carries a certain stigma. Based on the fact that Erin has a different last name from her parents, it’s implied that she’s divorced. It’s not clear if her ex-husband is the father of her child or not, but Erin has told her family that the father of her child didn’t even know she was pregnant and therefore doesn’t know the child exists.

Brian is a prodigal son who was known as a troublemaker before he moved away to Australia. He is welcomed back with open arms by Aileen, who is very happy to see him. Con and Erin are much more wary and skeptical of Brian’s sudden reappearance. It’s open to interpretation why Brian suddenly wanted to move back to this small village. Was he running home to his family or running away from something?

Brian won’t really say why he suddenly decided to move back to his hometown without giving his family any advance notice. His family doesn’t press the issue, and he lives in Aileen and Con’s home. Brian is also quickly given a job as a fisherman in the family business. Although the O’Hara family is responsible for employing about 40 to 50 people in the village, the family lives modestly but is aware that the family has a certain amount of power in this community.

Con’s elderly father Paddy O’Hara (played by Lalor Roddy) also lives on the family property. Paddy, who is mute and might have dementia, passed on the family’s oyster business to Con, who promised Paddy that he would keep the business going. In his current mental state, Paddy is mostly unresponsive when people try to talk to him.

However, when Brian comes back to live in the family home, Paddy seems to light up when he’s around Brian. Brian is attentive to Paddy and helps take care of him like a dutiful and compassionate grandson. At one point, Brian is able to coax Paddy out of Paddy’s muteness, by getting Paddy to sing out loud.

It becomes obvious early on in the story that Aileen favors Brian over Erin. Brian has a very charismatic side to him where he shows that he can be outgoing and charming. He’s a “mama’s boy” who knows that Aileen is more likely than Con to forgive or overlook Brian’s flaws and misdeeds. As far as Aileen is concerned, whatever wrongdoings that Brian committed in the past, they should stay in the past. Aileen thinks Brian deserves a chance to prove that he’s turned his life around.

The opening scene of “God’s Creatures” is a subtle indication of how this village is rooted in traditions and superstitions. A fisherman named Mark Fitz, who worked for the O’Hara family, has been found dead in the sea, and his body has been taken out of the water. He drowned because he didn’t know how to swim. His mother Mary Fitz (played by Marion O’Dwyer) works in the processing plant. This drowning happened before Brian came back to the village to live.

The villagers traditionally don’t want their fishermen to know how to swim, so that if one of them is drowning, other people won’t be responsible for jumping in the water to save the drowning person. No one really questions this tradition, which is an indication that people in the community are willing to sacrifice others for a “survival of the fittest” mentality. As an example of Erin’s willingness to be a nonconformist in this tight-knit village, she tells her family that she’s going to teach her son how to swim.

One of Erin’s closest friends is Sarah Murphy (played by Aisling Franciosi), who works at the O’Hara family’s oyster processing plant. Like many people in the village, Sarah has lived there her entire life. Sarah, who is closer in age to Brian than she is to Erin, is a former schoolmate of Brian’s. She is trapped in an unhappy and abusive marriage to Francie D’Arcy (played by Brendan McCormack), who is very controlling and often accuses her of being unfaithful to him. Sarah having a different last name from her husband is an indication that she has an independent streak.

Sarah confides in Erin that due to her arguments with Francie, “I’ve been back in my parents’ house for a couple of nights. Time puts it all into perspective very quickly. He was brutal with his words. Still, though, he’s just like anyone else, though. We’re all God’s creatures in the dark.”

One night, Brian is hanging out at a local pub owned by a man named Dan Nell (played by Enda Oates), who is also the chief bartender. Sarah is there too, and Brian strikes up a flirtatious conversation with her. “I can’t believe you’re still here, to be honest,” Brian tells Sarah. “I thought you’d long abandon this place.”

Sarah replies, “Everything I need was here. I didn’t have to go looking for it.” Brian says, “Likewise.” This statement from Brian seems to be not very honest, since he obviously was looking for something somewhere else, by living in Australia for years and deliberately not contacting his family.

Brian then begins to reminisce about the good times that he and Sarah used to have when they were teenagers. Sarah curtly says about this reminsicing, “I wouldn’t get too hung up on it if I were you.” It’s implied that Brian has been attracted to Sarah for years. And now that he knows she’s in a troubled marriage, he wants to know if he has a chance with her. However, Sarah quickly shuts down this possibility.

About one week after this encounter, the O’Hara family business gets some bad news: Fungus has been found in some of the harvested oysters, so the fishing operations are temporarily halted. Around the same time, Sarah has been acting strangely on the job. On day, she faints near one of the conveyor belts, and when Aileen goes over to help her, Sarah says to her in a hostile manner: “Don’t touch me!”

Aileen will soon find out why Sarah is acting this way. One night, a garda named Mike (played by Andrew Bennett) visits the O’Hara family home to tell Aileen that a woman (whose name he won’t disclose) has accused Brian of raping her the week before. Brian has denied it and says that on the night in question of the alleged rape, he was at home all night, and Aileen can vouch for him. Mike asks Aileen if Brian’s alibi is true, and Aileen automatically says yes.

However, later when Aileen confronts Brian about where he was that night, he admits he was out in Dan Nell’s pub, where his accuser says that they were at, but that he had no sexual contact with her. Brian vigorously tells Aileen that he didn’t sexually assault anyone. It isn’t long before Aileen finds out that Sarah is Brian’s accuser.

Aileen believes Brian, so she feels resentment toward Sarah and thinks that Sarah is trying to ruin Brian’s life. Sarah feels resentment toward Aileen, because she thinks that Aileen is willfully covering up for Brian. Meanwhile, Erin is inclined to believe Sarah and doesn’t like it that Aileen refuses to hear Sarah’s side of the story. Needless to say, the tension builds when an investigation yields a result that is bound to make one side very unhappy.

“God’s Creatures” is a “slow burn” story where the last third of the movie is the best part. As soon as Aileen finds out that Brian doesn’t have an alibi for the period of time that he was accused of raping Sarah, the seeds of doubt have been planted in Aileen’s mind, but she tries to repress this doubt at all costs. Erin, who always felt like Aileen unfairly favored Brian over Erin, becomes increasingly infuriated with Aileen for what Erin thinks is misguided parental protection. Con stays out of this family conflict by not taking either side.

Meanwhile, Brian gets the support from many people in the community who think of him as a reformed “good guy,” and they want the rape accusation to go away. As for Sarah, coming forward with this rape allegation has made life much worse for her at her home and at work. She gets bullied and shamed by certain members of the community who think that she’s lying.

“God’s Creatures” is a scathing and often-melancholy rumination of how society often deals with sexual assault—a crime that is typically very hard to prove because there are usually only two witnesses: the accuser and the accused. If the accused admits to having sexual contact with the accuser, the accused usually says that this sexual contact was consensual. Sarah is blamed by some people for waiting a week to come forward with her accusation. It’s a common reaction from people who don’t know or don’t care that when an accuser chooses to comes forward is not proof of an accuser’s honesty or dishonesty about the allegation.

Watson gives a very nuanced performance as Aileen, who thinks of herself as a moral and upstanding person, but Aileen starts to question what kind of person she is the more she begins to doubt that Brian is telling the truth. Mescal probably has the hardest role to play, since the Brian character is supposed to keep viewers guessing up to a certain point if he’s a “good guy” or not. Franciosi has some standout moments in her role as Sarah, who finds out quickly that her entire reputation can change once she’s labeled a rape accuser.

The rape accusation causes a rift in the O’Hara family, as Erin makes it clear that she’s on Sarah’s side. However, the movie also shows how the accusation affects the entire community, not just the O’Hara family and Sarah. “God’s Creatures” is a depiction of how society can be complicit in enabling harm. And in this community, where the attitude is “survival of the fittest,” justice and peace often can’t be found in a court of law.

A24 released “God’s Creatures” in select U.S. cinemas on September 30, 2022.

Review: ‘Monster Family 2,’ starring the voices of Emily Watson, Nick Frost, Jessica Brown Findlay, Ethan Rouse, Emily Carey, Catherine Tate and Jason Isaacs

October 23, 2021

by Carla Hay

Emma Wishbone (voiced by Emily Watson), Frank Wishbone (voiced by Nick Frost), Max Wishbone (voiced by Ethan Rouse) and Fay Wishbone (voiced by Jessica Brown Findlay) in “Monster Family 2” (Image courtesy of VivaKids)

“Monster Family 2”

Directed by Holger Tappe

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, Scotland, the Himalayas and outer space, the animated film “Monster Family 2” features an all-white cast of characters representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A British family that can transform into monsters is targeted by an American family in a spaceship that wants to capture all monsters that they think are menaces to society.

Culture Audience: “Monster Family 2” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the first “Monster Family” movie and people who don’t mind seeing a substandard animated film with a silly story and messy production values.

Maddox Starr (voiced by Daniel Ben Zenou), Mila Starr (voiced by Emily Carey) and Marlene Starr in “Monster Family 2” (Image courtesy of VivaKids)

“Monster Family 2” is one of those sequels that shouldn’t have been made because hardly anyone was asking for it and it’s worse than its predecessor. The 2017 animated film “Monster Family” was a huge flop with audiences and critics. It’s mind-boggling that anyone thought it was a good idea to do a sequel to a movie that clearly was such an unequivocal dud in every sense of the word. But here is “Monster Family 2,” a time-wasting, incoherent and dull movie that fails at any attempt to be funny or interesting.

Holger Tapper, who directed “Monster Family,” is also the director of “Monster Family 2.” The first “Monster Family,” as atrocious as it was, still had a story that was simple enough for people of many ages to follow: Count Dracula (voiced by Jason Isaacs) became infatuated with a married woman named Emma Wishbone who, along with her husband and two adolescent children, got cursed and the Wishbone family all turned into monsters. A lot of shenanigans ensued until the curse was predictably lifted. And (spoiler alert) at the end of the movie, Count Dracula was frozen into an icicle-like cage with his own snowflake weapon.

In “Monster Family 2,” Count Dracula is able to free himself from his icicle prison, but he isn’t in this sequel as much as he was in “Monster Family.” Instead, the family ends up spending part of the movie in outer space because of a convoluted story involving a spaceship-residing human family that wants to capture the world’s worst monsters. David Safier, who co-wrote the first “Monster Family” movie with Catharina Junk, is the sole screenwriter for “Monster Family 2.” Because he’s the only screenwriter this time around, it’s now easy to see who’s mainly responsible for coming up with all the bad story ideas for this movie franchise, which is based on Safier’s children’s book “Happy Family.”

Through a series of circumstances, the Wishbones are turned into monsters again: Emma Wishbone (voiced by Emily Watson) is turned into a vampire. Emma’s husband Frank Wishbone (voiced by Nick Frost) becomes Frankenstein. Emma and Frank’s daughter Fay Wishbone (voiced by Jessica Brown Findlay), who’s about 16 or 17, is transformed into a mummy. Emma and Frank’s son Max Wishbone (voiced by Ethan Rouse), who’s about 12 or 13, is changed into a werewolf. The Wishbone family is British and live in a middle-class home in New York City.

In the beginning of the movie, the Wishbones are at the wedding of Baba Yaga (voiced by Catherine Tate), the elderly witch who put a spell on them in the first “Monster Family” movie. Baba Yaga is friendly with the Wishbones now. Her groom is an elderly man named Renfield. The Wishbones are the only guests at the wedding, which takes place in a church. Count Dracula’s three annoying (and thankfully mute) bats are still hovering around being the pests that they were in “Monster Family.”

The Wishbones think that they have gone back to their regular lives as human beings. The only “turmoil” in the family in the beginning of the story is that Fay—who is constantly on her phone to take selfies and to use her social media—is expressing some teenage rebellion because she’s secretly thinking about dropping out of school. Max, who is an insecure brat, knows this secret and threatens to tell the parents. Emma is generally more level-headed than her husband Frank, who is sort of a bumbling goofball when he gets overly excited.

Unbeknownst to this small wedding party, they are all being spied on by an American family of three people in a spaceship, which is called the Starr Copter. These spies are the Starr Family, whose motto is “I can make the world a better place.” The family consists of a billionaire philanthropist couple named Maddox Starr (voiced by Daniel Ben Zenou) and Marlene Starr and their teenage daughter Mila Starr (voiced by Emily Carey), who is sent to do all the dirty work for her parents.

Actually, the Starrs think that what they’re doing is the opposite of dirty work. These do-gooders are fanatical about finding and capturing the worst monsters in the world. They want to keep these monsters imprisoned in pods on their spacecraft. Mila ends up capturing Dracula. Her parents praise her and tell her to capture Baba Yaga next.

And that’s how Mila ends up literally crashing the wedding, where she states her intentions. She has drones that can lift people in the air. The Wishbone family tries in vain to stop Mila from abducting Baba Yaga and Renfield, but Mila whisks the bride and groom away and holds them captive on the Starr Copter.

During this weirdly slow-paced battle, Mila gets into an argument with Max and insults him by calling him “Pizza Boy.” Mila gives him this nickname because she says that the only thing it looks like he knows how to do in life is order pizza. It’s a mean-spirited dig at Max’s body size because he’s a little chubby.

“Monster Family 2” has some strange comedy that falls very flat, not including the body-shaming jokes that are downright moronic. During her argument with Max, Mila kisses him on the lips, which suggests that she’s actually attracted to him. After Mila kisses Max, they both say in disgust, “Eww!” This kissing scene just looks out-of-place in this movie.

Max is also dressed like a 1980s pimp when he goes to the wedding: He’s wearing gold chains, a brown fur-lined jacket, baggy pants and sneakers. Max’s father Frank compliments Max and tells him he looks great. It’s an odd remark, considering the outfit looks more like a Halloween costume than something an adolescent boy should be wearing at a wedding.

Even more bizarre: There’s an Oedipal moment when Max emerges in this inappopriate attire, he swaggers like he thinks he’s a pimp, and he looks at his mother and touches her face in a way that suggests that he thinks even his own mother could fall for his seductive charms. This is all being depicted for a boy who isn’t even old enough to have a driver’s license. And this hint of incestful thoughts from this boy is just too creepy for a family-oriented movie—or any movie for that matter.

Out on the street before they go into the church, Max happens to see a girl he has a crush on. But right at that moment, his baggy pants fall down. The girl and the friend who’s with her take photos on their phone. Max is naturally embarrassed. It’s a scene that’s awkwardly presented in the movie. And let’s just not discuss the cheesy dancing to MC Hammer’s 1990 hit “U Can’t Touch This” that comes later in the movie.

In the quest to rescue Baba Yaga and Renfield, the Wishbones are turned into monsters again when Max uses a magical amulet that he got from Baba Yaga. Mila’s parents tell her that the Loch Ness Monster and the Yeti (also known as the Abominable Snowman) are next on her list of monsters to capture. What follows is a lot of ridiculousness involving the Wishbone family (in monster form) going to Scotland and the Himalayas.

The action scenes in “Monster Family 2” are poorly staged, with characters in the film moving too slow and/or standing around talking in what are supposed to be high-energy chase sequences. The dialogue is simply awful. The story is extremely tedious. The characters are unappealing, while the voice performances are mediocre. And there’s a truly cringe-inducing moment toward the end where some of the characters sing the Human League’s 1986 hit “Human,” in a scene that’s supposed to be sentimental for all the reasons you think, if you know the lyrics to the song.

The only notable thing that “Monster Family 2” has going for it is that the animation is very colorful. Worst of all, for a movie about a “monster family,” there is hardly anything spooky (even in a comedic way) about this film. Any movie that under-uses an iconic villain such as Count Dracula is a movie that’s not worth seeing.

VivaKids released “Monster Family 2” in select U.S. cinemas on October 15, 2021. Sky Group premiered the movie in the United Kingdom on October 22, 2021.