Movie Review: THE FRONT ROOM

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: September 6th, 2024 / 01:24 AM

Rating: R
Stars: Brandy Norwood, Andrew Burnap, Kathryn Hunter, Neil Huff
Writers: Max Eggers & Sam Eggers, based on the short story by Susan Hill
Directors: Max Eggers & Sam Eggers
Distributor: A24
Release Date: September 6, 2024

Directed – in their feature debut – and written by brothers Max Eggers & Sam Eggers, THE FRONT ROOM is a dark comedy with some supernatural elements. It’s not for viewers with weak stomachs.

Indeed, squeamish folks should perhaps stop reading here. There’s barely a drop of blood to be seen in THE FRONT ROOM, but we get copious amounts of other human bodily fluids.

We meet heavily pregnant Belinda (Brandy Norwood), a college professor in anthropology, as she talks to her students about representations of the goddess, or sacred female.

Belinda, who is Black, loves her job and seems good at it. Unfortunately, she does not have tenure, and is subjected to scheduling cutbacks that appear to be based in bias against her pregnant status, and possibly in racism as well.

So, Belinda quits. Her white husband Norman (Andrew Burnap), is supportive, but his job as a defense attorney doesn’t make much money. He hasn’t told Belinda much about his family. Then his stepmother, Solange (Kathryn Hunter), calls to tell him that her husband, Norman’s father Lawrence, is dying. Despite Belinnda’s urging, Norman refuses to go to his father.

This is largely because Norman loathes Solange. When he was a child, he tells Belinda, Solange would not let Norman eat until she believed him when he sang “Jesus Loves Me.” She believes she sees signs and wonders. And, Norman adds in so many words, Solange is racist.

But when Lawrence dies soon thereafter, Norman and Belinda attend the funeral. Solange seems delighted to see Norman again, and is welcoming enough to Belinda.

Solange also has a proposal for her stepson and step-daughter-in-law. She is happy to sign over the entire fortune she inherited from Lawrence to the couple, so long as they bring her into their home to live out her final days.

Norman thinks this is a terrible idea, but Belinda urges compassion. Besides, they need the money. So, Solange gets installed in what was to be the baby’s nursery, and the nursery gets moved upstairs.

And then things start to escalate. Solange has a lot of physical issues that she expects Belinda to handle for her. Belinda begins to question what Solange really needs versus what she claims to need in terms of care, along with Solange’s motives.

The filmmakers are to be congratulated on allowing Norman to be the voice of common sense, at least at first. Usually, in movies even broadly like THE FRONT ROOM, men are uncommonly dense.

Norman does become increasingly less intuitive, though, and part of what we wonder about is whether this is simple stress, or if Solange is working some sort of spell on him. She does know quite a lot that she ought not to know, and can do a few other uncanny things.

So, there is a level of suspense in THE FRONT ROOM, but it’s mostly about the clash of wills between Belinda and Solange. Hunter, as the fading Southern grand dame, can lay on the charm and the malice and the weirdness in a swirling display. One closeup of her eyes and we can tell which way she thinks the score is going. It’s a fearless performance.

Norwood plays the voice of reason well, and Burnap lets us understand that Norman is a bit ineffectual without being hateful.

There are a couple of practical issues, like why Belinda and Norman initially want the nursery downstairs (we’ve got to side with Solange here, and it casts unnecessary doubt on the couple’s judgment), and why nobody in the movie appears to have heard of home health care, even when they can afford it.

The filmmakers make Solange duplicitous enough that we want to see Belinda prevail. We’re intrigued enough to be interested throughout in who will get the lasting upper hand and how it will occur.

But, despite the advertising, THE FRONT ROOM is not a horror movie in the conventional sense. Aging is frightening for those affected directly and indirectly. But the filmmakers here succeed in making it outrageous rather than scary.

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