It’s more atmospheric than scary and more high-class than horror. She Will, however, is a compelling journey to a place we’ve never been to with two interesting characters that don’t show up in movies much.
The great veteran actor Alice Krige plays an ageing movie star called Veronica who is confronting getting older and has just had a double-mastectomy. It is not a happy time for someone who was once lavishly celebrated.
She decides to go to a retreat in the Scottish Highlands, where she assumes she will be completely alone, save for her young nurse, Desi, played by Kota Eberhardt. The grand dame doesn’t much like her nurse, but someone needs to make sure she gets her meds and her bandages changed.
Shocked to discover that she has chosen the wrong season for a solo stay, Veronica is unpleasantly surprised to see a gaggle of guests in the lobby, most notably an over-the-top Rupert Everett in fat makeup, an art instructor leading a troupe of students through a weekend of painting within the lush scenery.
But underneath the top layer of soil in these woods, lie the ashes of thousands of witches who were killed in previous centuries. We are even told how the carbon and other elements of the dead have enriched the soil. There’s magic in the mud!
Meanwhile, Veronica is having trippy dreams and has, apparently, even gone sleepwalking in the night, leaving a pile of mud on the floor which Desi discovers the next day.
We haven’t gotten where we’re going yet, but we’re getting there
Veronica Ghent may be a washed up actress, but here she feels stronger, gradually looking better and enjoying an improved mood. She’s even become nice with Desi. The flashes in her dreams reveal, in gradually peeling layers, that a 12 or 13 year old Veronica was the star of a huge 1969 film that is being re-made by the same director, Hathbourne ( a game Malcolm McDowell ) and that he abused her terribly.
But we now seeing this supernatural thriller start to meld with a revenge tale and the way Veronica’s presence (or ghost? can a living person also be a ghost, I don’t know) causes Hathbourne to melt down on live TV. It’s delicious.
Meanwhile, Desi goes to the local pub where she accepts drinks from an obviously sketch young dude and things in that short, B-storyline go exactly as you’d expect, which means dude is going to have to pay.
The film has been called “feminist” insofar as the major point of the story involves a kind of #metoo response to horrible men. Yes, a “revenge flick.” To me, that’s become a loaded word. But suffice to say that from the dead, unseen “witches” (probably just women who voiced opinions back in the day) to Desi and, of course, to Veronica Ghent. Finding peace and strength from within, even with the help of some Scottish earth magic, is, as it runs out, a great idea for a film; especially if you have Alice Krig, Kota Eberhardt and Director Charlotte Colbert pulling the strings.
She Will debuts on Shudder, this Friday, October 14th
