Saint Maud is a psychological/paranoid/religious horror film. Directed by first timer Rose Glass.
It is a film that I wanted to like, but that entirely bored and drained me of interest. But before I go into the flaws of the film, I must say the positives.
This is a film with some wonderful things going for it, for one, the lead Actress Morfydd Clark gives a brilliant performance. The film puts her character through a painful and disturbing ringer and Morfydd makes it all feel real. She is able to capture the pained psychoses of Maud and the crazed antics and insane breakdowns all while walking a fine line of believability
The second thing that this film does well is the cinematography, Ben Fordesman & Rose have an incredible eye. Whether it’s some stunning framing, rotating frames, brilliant use of depth and distance, and a split diopter shot! A fan of good visuals should find a few treats here for them.
And lastly this film has some ingenious and brilliant visual ideas, I found myself saying out loud, "that is so fucking cool" quite a few times. For those wanting to enter the film blind, I won’t spoil them, but I will say they are special FX driven visuals that highlight and showcase Maud's disturbed reality.
Okay now the bad. I find the entirety of the film incredibly thin. I think this is because of the script. I felt no sense of suspense or emotion. I generally felt a sense of boredom watching the film. I get what the film is aiming for with the mental illness and the religious overtones and the psychoses and the female perspective that amplifies it all. But still, I found myself incredibly uninterested and unmoved. It's hard to articulate why I felt this, since the pieces make sense and some story elements are interesting, but it all feels.. Well, rather aimless. I never felt like anything really had a point outside the obvious traumas that Maud and others go through. I'm not saying Maud’s character has to be likeable but there's no engine of empathy going on anywhere in the film, for me at least. It just feels like a bunch of psychotic elements that never lead to anything of meaning.
I know the body horror did a lot for other viewers but without any interesting reason or subtext under it, and I mean deeper than the pyscho/religious ones. It just feels like a film with no real purpose or intent.
So, in ending
6/10 - Alright
Saint Maud is a beautifully shot and sometimes imaginative film with no real purpose or intention outside its horror shell.
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