Review: Amulet (2020)
Directed by: Romola Garai
Starring: Carla Juri, Imelda Staunton, Alec Secareanu
Written by: Romola Garai
Music by: Sarah Angliss
Country: United Kingdom
Available on: DVD (Magnolia Home Entertainment)
IMDb
Amulet is about a man with a few ghosts in his past who stumbles into the curious care of a nun and a young woman tending to her deathly ill mother. The first thing that strikes you about this movie is how beautiful it looks; the scenes in an expansive, foggy forest are stunning, and even once most of the movie shifts to a dingy house, things look appropriately lived in. The story crawls along at a relatively slow pace, shifting between main character Tomaz' past as a soldier guarding an isolated outpost and his present as a derelict now-handyman under the employ of the nun and woman, Magda. But the awkward interaction between Tomaz and Magda is mostly endearing and watchable, even if you know there is something pretty broken and off about both of them. There is just enough weirdness afoot to remind you this is a horror film, including strange bat creatures stuck in the plumbing and the horrifying moans of dying mom. His eagerness to care for Magda is just a little too eager and the nun's invitation to stay without any payment a little too good to be true. But ultimately, the pacing is a little too slow and I found myself drifting off at a few points. All of the characters are purposely left vague, unfortunately, to shield the viewer from a twist that's pretty effective and ultimately does make sense of everyone's actions to a degree, but comes a little too late in the movie without a ton of foreshadowing. Amulet goes pretty wacky once the plot shifts, and one sequence feels especially out of place and kind of silly given the pretty grounded first three-quarters. Still, this is a pretty promising feature debut from writer/director Romola Garai, who obviously has some interesting thoughts on gender politics. I think with a slightly tightened script, some additional lead-up to the twist (and more payoff), this could have been great.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10