CONFINEMENT – Review by Marina Antunes
While the rest of the world and more than a few movies, obsess over evil AI’s, Peter Howitt, whose notable works include Sliding Doors, Laws of Attraction and In the Name of the Father, the latter of which, I’m sorry to say I have yet to see, has opted for a far more classic evil: the demon child. I love to bask in the glow of a cheesy pseudo-horror with demonic overtones and from the opening scene of Confinement, there is an inkling that perhaps this movie will deliver on the promise of its ridiculous premise but alas, it is not meant to be.
Nathalie Emmanuel is Stella, a grieving widow who accepts an invitation to visit with her late-husband’s estranged family. The trouble bells are immediately triggered when it’s revealed that Stella’s husband ran away from wealth and status, changed his name and never mentioned the family. So here’s poor Stella, alone and broke when her mother-in-law Caroline, the great Claire Forlani, comes knocking with an offer to meet the family at their cottage.
Fast forward to the remote countryside estate that is more mansion in the woods than cottage. Stella is appropriately impressed until she meets the circus of unhinged characters. There’s the crazy grandmother, self-obsessed siblings and the cousin who was her husband’s best friend. It’s awkward from the get go but it quickly devolves into ridiculous madness. It’s a badly written mess of one-dimensional characters and actors who are trying really hard to make something out of nothing. Emmanuel and Forlani attempt to ground the crazy in some semblance of reality but they’re working with very little and as a result, their performances feel completely against what everyone else is doing which verges on the edge of soap opera territory. If I’m honest, this gave me flashbacks to my Days of Our Lives watching-era. This storyline, and the acting that goes with it, could easily be pulled from a script alongside Marlena’s demonic possession except this was far less fun to watch.
When Stella eventually, and far too late, decides she needs to leave, the movie’s title comes into play and she’s essentially confined to the house until she gives birth to what may or may not be the devil. There are one or two memorable scenes in the course of Stella’s attempts at escape but they too are mediocre rehashing of better movies.
I wish there was something positive to say about Confinement but it offers very little that is either good or memorable and sadly, it doesn’t even manage to be so bad that it incites anger. Instead, it does something even worse: it manages to be completely forgettable.
