"A BANQUET" // TIFF 2021
A BANQUET is a sometimes eerie, sometimes intriguing but often infuriating new atmospheric thriller premiering at this year's TIFF. The film, written by Justin Bell and directed by Ruth Paxton, begins strong and ends with whimper, unable to hold up the lofty expectations it sets upon itself. The film surrounds Holly (Sienna Guillory) and her family. Her husband recently committed suicide after a long illness away and their daughter Betsey (Jessica Alexander) was there to see the horrible end. Holly is left alone to raise two daughters (Ruby Stokes plays the younger daughter Isabelle) and no one has taken the time to properly mourn him. But after wandering into the woods while at a party, Betsey is awestruck by a bright red moon and finds herself... changed. How and why she's changed charges the rest of the film.
Holly does care for her daughters, but it's clear to Isabelle that she's second favorite. There's also a strange coldness to her care, always slightly detached. Holly's mother June (Linsday Duncan) watches from the outside, she herself holding secrets from the past. Soon, something different becomes very apparent with Betsey's behavior. She no longer wants to eat. Her body is telling her that she no longer needs it and no one knows quite what to make of it, especially when she's also not losing any weight. Her grandmother suspects that she's faking the entire thing for some unknown reason, but her mother seems to be drawn in more and more by her strangeness. Betsey reveals that darkness is coming for them and that she needs to prepare them. What exactly is happening to Betsey? Is this all in her head, or is there something far more bizarre happening to all of them?
There's a very similar vibe to A BANQUET as the film She Dies Tomorrow, Amy Seimetz's stellar end of everything film from last year. The eeriness of the atmosphere makes a lingering effect, and the performances of the entire ensemble transfixes. However, the atomosphere alone can't hold the film together and Justin Bell's script fails to make any cohesive sense of it all, especially in the third act. What starts as a film with endless imagination ends up being quite thin and frustrating, not delivering on the strange promises it begins with. Which is a shame because there is an interesting story simmering underneath. It just never reaches the heights we want it to.
GRADE: C+
WRITTEN BY Justin Bell DIRECTED BY Ruth Paxton STARRING Sienna Guillory, Jessica Alexander, Ruby Stokes, Kaine Zajaz, Lindsay Duncan. SELECTED AS PART OF THE 2021 TIFF. FOR MORE INFO: A BANQUET