The Red Circle

By Tom Nix // 10.16.09

To sum it up: I kind of hated this movie. And that’s a sad thing to say when the movie’s message is “If you love someone enough, you can wish them into becoming a zombie.”

The movie follows a young couple who are expecting a baby. They’ve tried and failed before, so this time is very important to them. Despite her mother in law’s insistence of having a hospital birth, Madeline (Jordan Ladd) is set on using a midwife to deliver the baby in the new age fashion. She’s able to convince her husband to go along with this after a one-on-one meeting where the plan is laid out and the woman’s credentials are mentioned (but never shown). The fact that his mother is a harpy manages to assist this decision as well.

Everything is going as planned, except for one night Madeline complains of chest pains and is taken to the hospital – where the doctor her mother-in-law has hired is waiting. After her midwife comes to her rescue and makes a fool out of everyone working there (it turns out that she only had a stone, and following the doctor’s orders of inducing labors would have killed the baby), the couple make the return drive home. Unfortunately, only one of them makes it there. After a faulty airbag incident causes the car to swerve off the road, both her husband and her unborn baby are killed.

But Madeline refuses to see it that way. She wants to carry the baby to term, and employs the midwife to help her deliver the stillborn child. Although the baby is birthed without a sound, after a few minutes the child  comes to life – and Madeline has everything she has ever wanted. But this miracle doesn’t come free of charge. The child, Grace, rejects the milk that Madeline tries to feed her. Only blood can sustain her.

And this is where the movie should have taken off. Avoiding minor spoilers, Madeline’s relationship with her midwife has put a strain on the assistant she employs, and Madeline is left to take care of the baby that has very, very special needs. If its not enough that Madeline is tasked with an increasingly dead child, she also has to deal with her Mother-in-Law. The woman blames Maddy for the death of her son, and has decided the best way to fill the gap in her life is to take Grace away from her and raise her as a surrogate granddaughter. It’s a bizarre breakdown we get to witness. She will routinely fill up baby bottles with her own milk (despite being past menopause), and even encourages her husband to nurse from her.

And this is essentially the fault of GRACE. We are following the stories of three completely insane women, whose decisions make no logical sense. The imagery of nursing a child that is drawing blood from a breast is a good one. The depths to which Madeline sinks to provide for her still life child  are chilling. But they all ring hollow as, one after another, a series of actions occur that are so insipidly derivative and coincidental and downright bonkers that any real fear or intensity that the film so desperately tries to induce falls flat. Its reduced to a couple of provocative and disturbing shots that have very little weight on the rest of the film as a terrifying narrative.

And its not even like director Paul Solet is untalented. Despite this being his first film, he is able to produce a lot of very interesting shots and edits, and he coaxes fantastic performances out of all of his lead actors. But maybe just on the surface level. Jordan Ladd, as Maddy,  produces all the facial expressions that go along with suffering at the hands of her newborn child. Samantha Ferris (Ellen Harvelle!), as Patricia the midwife, is able to keep a grasp on the character and take her through the ringers that she’s put through. Maybe best of all is Gabrielle Rose as Maddy’s mom Vivian. Sure, she’s basically the stereotypical insane mom, but it takes a certain ability to not only have a nude scene at 55, but find the soul of an otherwise horribly written character.

This all comes to a head in the third act, where Madeline, Vivian, and Patricia all end up in the same place at the same time and execute one of the dumbest, sloppiest, and ridiculous scenes out there. This film, it seems, was surrounded by great ideas and great performances – but none of them were allowed through the absolutely awful script. This is a movie that wants to take something cherished and universal – the love of a mother – and turn it on its head. You can see through the cracks that Solet has this idea in a deathgrip – all of the characters personify some aspect of this notion, but all are too busy engaging in ridiculous actions to drive this idea home and root it in the audience’s brain.

I’m sure it could be argued that because I’m a man, and don’t have any connection to what its like to birth, raise, and care for an infant, I don’t have the proper perspective. Or maybe its because if my baby all of a sudden smelt like a dumpster with a clean diaper, began to slowly rot, and bit into my flesh to get at my blood, I would a) Call a doctor to examine my baby or b) Not have a baby anymore. Part of the frustration is that the movie goes out of its way to set up why Madeline will not give this baby up. She’s had two stillborns is the past, this is all she has left of her husband (although there is more than enough evidence that suggests she was only married to get impregnated, and for no other reason), everyone else is out to get her, et cetera.

The core of the film, the horror in motherhood, falls apart when all of the characters fail to embody that idea totally – Instead focusing on the crumbling mental states of three women in various stages and headspaces. As a film, its a very detailed agenda scribbled over with crayon.

I almost feel bad giving this film a negative review. There is so much that’s almost great about it. The very end of the third act, for instance, is a pretty major reveal that holds a lot more interesting prospects than anything that came before it. But, at the end of the day, GRACE is a movie with an intriguing concept that is eschewed in favor of Women Behaving Moronically.

5.5 out of 10

Share