★★ out of ★★★★★
Published over two hundred years ago, there’s hardly a more iconic fairytale than the Brothers Grimm’s Hänsel und Grethel.
The nightmare-inducing childhood tale gets an even darker twist in director Oz Perkins’s new fantasy-horror film, Gretel and Hansel.
Told from the perspective of 16-year-old Gretel (Sophia Lillis), Gretel and Hansel opens with the titular fairytale characters fleeing their cold, gray, home. Their loving father is dead, their mother is utterly unhinged with grief, and plague and famine have decimated their small village.
So, it’s up to Gretel to be the heroine of her own tragedy in this female-driven, revisionist take on the classic tale of cannibalistic crones and confectionary cottages.
With 8-year-old Hansel (Sammy Leakey) by her side, Gretel embarks on a desperate journey, braving the woods, in search of work with woodcutters beyond the bounds of the only home they ever knew….and right into the gnarled hands of a child-eating witch.
In the guise of a bizarre, but welcoming, elderly woman Holda (Alice Krige), the child-nomming witch welcomes the duo into her house, offering them room and board in exchange for work. Hansel, who zealously notes the house “smells of cake!” is instantly game. And Gretel, despite having reservations, goes along with it.
Cheeky Hansel is content to eat his heart out and ignore Holda’s, um, quirks. (Like sniffing his hair in a very Big-Bad-Wolf “the better to eat you with” way.) It’s only when Gretel begins experiencing unsettling visions and nightmares that she begins to question everything about the seemingly kindly, but eccentric, Holda.
Where do the sumptuous feasts every night come from?
Who are the restlessly whispering spirits that roam the house?
What does Holda have to hide?
Director of I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House and The Blackcoat’s Daughter, Oz Perkins is one of today’s most underrated horror directors. With its cinema-wide premier at the end of January, Gretel and Hansel was Perkins’s biggest horror release to date.
And, his most disappointing.
Aesthetically, Gretel and Hansel has what it takes to be a haunting. Grotesque, even. With seamless camera work and a stirring soundtrack, Oz Perkins and cinematographer Galo Olivares evoke trapped and even suffocating sensations. Creating mood and tension through masterful camerawork, Perkins frames his shots in anxiety-escalating ways — making Holda’s hut and the wild of the woods even more menacing and unforgiving. Opting to film Gretel and Hansel in a smaller aspect ratio crowds us into the frame, holding us as captive as Holda’s unfortunate victims.
Saturated in dusky autumnal tones with shadowy heaviness creeping in at the corners, Gretel and Hansel is visually unnerving. However, as gorgeous as the cinematography and production design are, after 45 minutes Gretel and Hansel grows burdensome to watch. Although effective at first, the moodiness, stylistic stillness and close confines of the camera frame become stagnant, malaise, and fatiguing.
Hänsel und Grethel is a cautionary tale that celebrates the bond between siblings and their resiliency and resourcefulness in getting through hard times. The same can’t be said for Gretel and Hansel.
There’s so little chemistry between Lillis’s Gretel and Leakey’s Hansel that any semblance of a sibling “bond” fails spectacularly. A feeble script attempts to spoon-feed us the bond between them, but Lillis’s hollow, detached performance stomps out the contrived affection.
In his debut performance, young actor Sammy Leakey brings spunk, naivete and an eager-to-please mentality to Hansel. First-time actors, let alone child actors, don’t always have the complexity and nuance to really flesh out their characters. But Leakey’s grasp of Hansel’s desperation to be loved and safe bring depth to the character. As does the impressively potent anxiety that Leakey packs into his performance, spiking dread in the second act.
On the other hand, Lillis’s performance is distractingly stilted. Gretel is an underbaked concept of a character without any real motivation. It’s a nearly impossible feat to feel any connection to Gretel, let alone to see her as a flesh and blood person. As Gretel, Lillis’s tight-fisted restraint douses the entire film in melancholy awkwardness. A victim of poor writing, rehearsed words flop out of her mouth lifelessly and without any conviction. Lillis’s wooden performance borders on excruciating to witness. Lillis’s aggressive underacting vs the far more emotive performances from Alice Krige’s Holda and Leakey’s Hansel is jarring.
However, Gretel’s physical appearance is worth praising. Gretel is remarkably androgynous for the heroine of a fairytale. Burdened with pressing matters of survival, like protecting Hansel from abuse, neglect, and Holda’s ferocious appetite, is her priority. Clad in spare, coarse clothing with cropped hair, Gretel’s appearance reflects her practical and resilient spirit.
Gretel and Hansel was filmed on location in Ireland for a mere 25 days on a shoestring budget of just $5 million. And it shows.
In its second act, the unambitious narrative lethargically limps along . . . until cumulating into an abrupt and unsightly final act that leaves all of us wanting.
Seeing a director with such talent for subtle, meticulous storytelling serve up such a literal and uninspired ending feels like asking for an ice cream sundae but getting a splat of soggy, slimy spinach on a styrofoam tray.
Unlike Perkins’ other films, there’s nothing to glean from rewatching Gretel and Hansel.
There are no thoughtful, haunting realizations embedded in tiny moments. Nor any subtle details to pick up on that would’ve otherwise gone unseen in the first viewing. Choked by trope-y nightmares and gimmicky jump scares, Gretel and Hansel distinctly feels like the first take of a film helmed by a first-time director. Not someone who put together two other elegant and intelligent indie horror flicks. Gretel and Hansel is so literal and unembellished, it feels downright bland when placed alongside Perkins’ other films. It reeks of stale, unfulfilled potential.
Like the unfortunate famine-struck villagers at the beginning of the film, Gretel and Hansel’s toothless, lukewarm horror, emaciated narrative, and weak performances leave us hungering for more.
Comments are closed.