More of a slow-burn spooky thriller than a horror film (the genre with which it’s been labeled), Separation comes to the table with a good cast and rich production values, and even a prestige actor in a supporting role, the great Brian Cox.
So, while it may be short on scares, it plays well as a middle-of-the-road streaming flick.
Young actress Violet McGraw plays Jenny, an 8 year old living in a super hip Brooklyn brownstone with endlessly bickering parents. Mom (Mamie Gummer) is a big money lawyer from a blueblood family, while Dad (Rupert Friend) is a talented but struggling artist whose biggest success in the world of horror comics may be behind him. Violet spends a lot of time alone talking to herself. Or something?
Just to give us an early sense of foreboding, Dad’s stories were called “Grisly Kin”, and the house is surrounded by ultra-creepy marionettes based on those characters. Will we see several shots of these puppets lit from below and at the creepiest possible angles? Is water wet?
Mom has had enough of Dad’s lack of success and it looks like an acrimonious divorce is days away, and she’ll be suing for sole custody. She really seems quite nasty about the whole thing, but while talking on her phone in the middle of a crosswalk, she is suddenly mowed down by a car and instantly killed.
Now with Dad and daughter alone, except for the babysitter Samantha (Madeline Brewer), they try to carry on, but the nasty father-in-law (Brian Cox) thinks his daughter’s death was not an accident and sues for custody.
This whodunnit element comes a bit too late in the slow build up to it, but I liked that piece of the story, predictable as it was, as I am not usually a supernatural fan. Yes, I failed to mention to this point that there is an important thread of supernatural stuff in the narrative.
In the end, it’s almost too classy to be a “Horror flick,’ but I found it much easier to view than most within the genre this year.
Separation Opens in Theatres on April 30th | 2 ½ out of 4 Stars | Reviewed by Kyle Osborne
