Writer: Ben Hopkins and Elbert van Strien
Directed by: Elbert van Strien
Directed by Elbert van Strien, Repression (also known as The Marionette) is a conceptual thriller. The script takes us through the journey of child psychiatrist, Dr Marianne Winter (played by Thekla Reuten) who has relocated her life – professional and personal – after the traumatic death of her husband.
Dr. Winter leaves America to work with a psychiatry team in Scotland. She arrives, as confused as we are, over such a dramatic change. Dr. Winter’s previous life is in deep contrast to what she finds in her new home. Van Strien doesn’t shy away from Scotland’s lowering moods, and presents us with thick, bruising skies and pavements slick with rain.
Marianne is put to work and allocated cases. One file intrigues her – Manny (a suitably creepy Elijah Wolf) is also bereaved, having lost both his parents. He draws endlessly – dark, fiercely energetic images. When Marianne asks why the last few months of his notes are missing, the team exchange anxious looks. Her predecessor, we learn, has been sectioned.
With Manny uncommunicative, Marianne looks at the drawings in closer detail. They are pictures of doom; terrible twists of fate. Driving home, Marianne is stopped in her tracks by an horrific car accident. The next day, she spots in the clutch of Manny’s drawings a chilling recreation of the upturned cars. Marianne puts together a theory that Manny’s drawings are not a child’s imagination, but predictions of the future.
The narrative boldly questions what this implies, including an alternate-reality, literal fork-in-the-road moment, but struggles to pin down its ambitious ideas. Flitting between Western and Eastern philosophy, religion and superstition, Repression’s ‘two realities’ fails to convince. There is no metaphysical reckoning, as the film conceptually doubles back on itself during the third act. Repression needed a lightness of touch; an unsettling other-worldliness as a gradual build. Marianne’s involvement with Manny means danger for everyone around her, but the horrors are applied too heavily to be effective.
It’s a shame as the film doesn’t want for talent. The cast features a roster of British names, including Bill Paterson, Rebecca Front and Peter Mullan as the Scottish psychiatry team. As Manny, Elijah Wolf makes the best of a difficult role. The problem is that the characters are not fleshed out enough: even Marianne is pretty much an enigma. To witness her descent into obsession, we need a baseline, and Repression fails to provide it. The psychiatry team rarely step outside a view of academia that is decades behind reality. With attention paid to characterisation, Repression would be far more emotionally engaging.
Repression fails to meet the bar it has set for itself. In terms of themes, the film takes on far too much and leaves the narrative unsatisfactorily resolved. This is not ambiguity for art’s sake, but ambiguity because the story has too many loose ends to make a coherent ending. While all the component parts of a psychological thriller are here, Repression cannot get them lined up, and as a result, never quite hits the target.
Signature Entertainment presents Repression on Amazon Prime Video 1 April.
