Movie Review: CUCKOO

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: August 9th, 2024 / 09:15 AM

Rating: R
Stars: Hunter Schafer, Dan Stevens, Jan Bluthardt, Márton Csókás, Jessica Henwick, Mila Lieu, Greta Fernández, Proschat Madani, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Konrad Singer, Kalin Morrow
Writer: Tilman Singer
Director: Tilman Singer
Distributor: Neon
Release Date: August 9, 2024

The film CUCKOO is well-titled. This isn’t an insult. Since many of the characters are demonstrably crazy, and it is plotted so densely that viewers may feel some madness themselves, a reference to insanity seems appropriate. The title also references the bird species with the unusual method of raising their young, although that analogy gets stretched to the breaking point.

CUCKOO begins with a couple arguing in German on a staircase. A young woman with a great deal of long hair flees out the door of the house and runs into the surrounding forest.

Then we are on a mountain road in Germany’s Bavarian Alps. Here we meet seventeen-year-old Gretchen (Hunter Schafer), her dad Luis (Márton Csókás), stepmother Beth (Jessica Henwick), and little half-sister Alma (Mila Lieu). Mila, we learn, can hear perfectly well, but has been unable to speak since birth.

Gretchen is miserable. Her beloved mother in the U.S. has died, forcing her to come live with Luis and his second family in Germany. They’re in the midst of moving into a little resort town owned by Herr König (Dan Stevens). Luis and Beth have been employed to design a new enclave for him.

König, who seems to be everywhere at once and has no sense of personal space, offers Gretchen a receptionist job at the resort’s hotel. With the prospect of nothing but boredom and squabbles at home, Gretchen accepts.

A number of things happen, almost all at once: there is a strange sound; Alma suffers seizures, a confused guest throws up in the hotel reception area; Gretchen is attacked by a very alarming woman (Kalin Morrow); one cop (Konrad Singer) refuses to believe Gretchen; another police detective (Jan Bluthardt) actually knows more than Gretchen does, but insists that she not tell anyone about their investigations.

Gretchen is also approached by a hotel guest who calls herself Ed (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey), who may or may not be a new friend.

Director/writer Tilman Singer is determined not to give us dull moments. He’s going for something of a clinical Cronenbergian look in a lot of the indoor sequences, and then provides isolated figures surrounded by pools of darkness in nighttime exteriors.

We don’t get effective jump scares, but we get good atmosphere, imagery (there’s a shadow behind a bicycle, and a shot of a tray, that are both memorable), and general creepiness. Singer is forever laying out new puzzle pieces for us, so we’re continually trying to figure out how all this fits together.

By the time we get to the end, it feels like we’ve got a couple of pieces either left over or that don’t entirely fit. When we finally discover one main character’s objection to another, it doesn’t make sense; we can’t tell what’s happening when a certain supernatural element is repeatedly deployed; a few who-knew-what-when questions remain unanswered. But there is enough genuine emotion in Gretchen’s sense of loss and eventual purpose to keep us invested.

Schafer goes through stages of grief, terror, determination and a few other powerful states for us to remain involved with Gretchen throughout. Stevens and Singer both appreciate the humor in König’s jovial intimidation techniques (although Stevens’s accent sometimes slides from German to American). Bluthardt is suitably committed, and Bergès-Frisbey is appropriately alluring and enigmatic.

CUCKOO is extremely active, and a bit nuts. It winds up having an unanticipated, welcome message that makes up for some of the messiness. We may come out of it a bit more confused than the filmmakers intend, but we’re certainly never bored.

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Densely-plotted sci-fi/horror with an American teen at a Bavarian resort

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