Max and Sam Eggers’ The Front Room, a film about hags and hagsploitation, has left me speechless at least a dozen times. This is not, however, a compliment. The Front Room is first and foremost a film that does not bring terror as a horror-comedy should. There is no doubt about it–The Front Room is disgusting–quite literally. And while that may sound like a criticism, it’s a more accurate way of describing the film’s most basic premise: the main plot is about an old hag, who can’t contain her bladder, humiliating her daughter-in-law by deliberately wetting herself. (In a sense, it is a more accurate representation of the violence in the film. Simi Drego Bouchard, Walter Bouchard’s wife and stepson, frequently describes it as a tremendous humiliation.)
Chang of course drew her inspiration from the suffering physical death of the one you love, as portrayed in Michael Haneke’s Amour. However, there is nothing more different from the original then the slablead. One simply cannot control a loved one, and there is the sheer potential to stretch that phrase out, there is so much unbelievably strong material there to be mined from, say aging. The Front Room, however, is fundamentally disinterested in all of that boorish reality except for incontinence, which is something it bluntly focuses on.
The story is quite basic with some sense of foreboding: anthropologist and future mother Belinda (in a painted belly courtesy of a working Brandy who is quite up to the defect of the screenplay) is very disappointed from the drama department as per her norms. Less normatively (seeing that the present academic job market is a pit), she walks out barely 5 minutes into the film because she was invited for one meeting with the head of department and was not offered anything else. Hence, she is a bit lackluster and her husband Norman (Andrew Burnap who comes a little flat) goes through tough times where Renson promises Norman is one promotion away from saying he’s about to get a promotion, babe.
A quick, albeit risky, way to ease the couple’s financial troubles appears soon when Norman’s fanatically religious and violent stepmother Zare where Kathryn Hunter went mute, only able to speak in the style of Senator Claghorn. Fortunately, to the horror of most employees and the audience alike, that’s not the worst thing Solange has to offer All the couple has to do is let her live in their house for a few months so she could die there for the bargain of inheriting her vast fortune, after which she gets to inherit her fortune. When Bedelia finally agrees to her terms, even though Norman is not keen on the idea, they both order a wall from a nursery room that was prepared for their future children to make it into Solang’s new bedroom. How troublesome could a monster-in-law even get?
When will every parody of a Nicolas Cage film become Stephen King’s masterpiece… or vice versa? Solange will fit the bill perfectly once she einstines herself in a room with dozens of shunning black curtains (and heavy makeup) while grinning in the most creepiest and uncanny fashion. It goes waithood saying that such a nonsensical character with so many high ambitions deserves nothing less than a world class actress Hunter who played her brilliantly. Her performance alone reimburses a ticket to The Front Room despite the fact that the film has some well-framed tableaus care of cinematographer Ave Berkofsky.
To establish psychological tension during this movie, the Eggers brothers intend via Solange to target four different verticals that appease our deeper rooted fears: our naturally embedded fears of 1) racism; 2) even Catholicism infused with supernatural elements; 3) third parties who try to win over our family members and replace us in what is ostensibly our life and 4) freely losing control of our bladder. Of the first three, they have all been done before, and have been done many times better. And as for the fourth.one… The Front Room makes a pretty good case as to why it hasn’t been done before. (It seems, and who’s to say this isn’t true, that poop really doesn’t have much of an impact on someone’s heartrate; feelings of a )prompted meal however are a different matter altogether). There’s not really much shock value when watching this, I mean, how many times can one watch an old lady call out in exasperation “M-E-DOUBLE-S-MESS” before one starts questioning the choice of viewing the show in the first place.
The Eggers brothers are not particularly tentative with any of this. These fantasies are also given a heavy-handed approach along with unsettling visuals: there is a picture of Solange as Mary in the Livingroom while her aged disciples sit cloaked in black like a cult, then there is that one time she puts a white napkin on her head that has a wig on it and shouts that “I’m a racist baby, goo-goo gah-gah” (how I wish this was made-up), then there is that dream scene where she is breastfeeding a fully grown son. This includes a breast feed scene, which despite its lack of blood and/or violence is usually the case with The Front Room, the film retains some classic weaknesses of the style and feels: it has a thoughtless fixation on disgustingness and violence.
As much as it is visible that The Front Room possesses the resolve to capture the bleak, twisted, and comical essence of growing into an old person, the scenes that were meant to deliver that essence come off more as palimpsests. Brushstrokes on top of what could have been an interesting film. Most of the attempts other than the gags – which can both be funny and oh-god-I-might-puke cringe – are only in sight traces and even then it feels like one is squinting to see them. It’s as enjoyable as playing an infinite game of rock-paper-scissors. The Front Room’s horror is pitched against its camp and the succeeding camp against its themes and the themes against its horror and shock value. Everyone loses.
The debates surrounding the psycho-biddy genre which has been in existence for a long time are also very rich. There are many elements to critique in this entry of the hagsploitation since it does not come off as disrespectful to the actress playing the central “hag” (if anything, it’s a tour-de-force for Hunter), but most of the other typical criticisms apply wholesale. The Front Room is neither a consolation for those that are undergoing the trauma of women when time has begun to rot their bodies and or their minds; rather this is the narrative of a film that embodies the very body that has aged and is distinctly vilified and caricatured.
It’s quite difficult to picture an alternative version of this movie where Solange is substituted by Norman’s stepfather.
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