Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz have already been mentioned in The Samhain Project as they are the minds behind The Lodge. They seem to have a predilection for disastrous aftermaths of horrible family tragedies.
This film, Goodnight Mommy, is an Austrian release. As in The Lodge, there's an awful tragic event, but this one is a bit of a mystery, masked off screen. Twin brothers Elias and Lukas, played wonderfully by Elias and Lukas Schwarz (at least they didn't need to learn their characters' names) have divorced parents, and seem to think their mother is not who she is supposed to be any longer after plastic surgery, and her subsequent return home's behavior.
What this leads to is upsetting bloodletting and pain for all involved. Much like The Lodge, the selfishness of parents in the face of unimaginable loss bequeaths confused pain on the young, who are often ill-equipped to handle it, and often can turn to dark methods to face it.
I hate to repeat myself, but much like The Lodge, this is not a happy film, but a quiet, sinking slide into an inevitable worst case scenario. Watch at your own discretion. Michael Haneke made a strange and effectively disturbing Austrian film in 1997 called Funny Games, that was anything but fun, however. He directed the English language version 10 years later with Naomi Watts in the lead. They're using Ms. Watts in the remake of Goodnight Mommy, but Fiala and Franz are not directing it.
Naomi may be a bit of a glutton for punishment. She may need to form a support group with Susanne Wuest, the mother of Lukas and Elias. She's powerful in this film. A character arc that draws you from hatred to sympathy in layers of difficulty, with little dialogue. This is a tough sit, folks, but as Rob Zombie apparently told William Moseley in the shooting of The Devil's Rejects, when he was struggling with his character's cruelty: "art isn't safe".
Or some shit.
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