Grief, none of us know how we will handle it until it is thrust upon us by the cold cruel finger of death itself. Aussie directing duo Danny and Michael Phillippou force you to sit up and face its brutality with their latest, Bring Her Back.
Andy (Billy Barratt) and his younger sister Piper (Sora Wong) after the sudden and confronting death of their father, are added into the foster system with an efficiency that could only be the movie making magic. Driving alone to the wooded outskirts of the Adelaide hills the siblings are hoping to get through this next chapter of their lives well enough so that Andy can claim guardianship of Piper once he turns 18. They are dependent on each other more than your average siblings. Piper is blind, only able to see shapes and colours, and while she tries to not let it affect her day to day life she does need some help, Andy clearly traumatised by his fathers death tries to hide his pain and anger from Piper to varying degrees of success.
Once at their new home they meet the eccentric Laura (Sally Hawkins) and her other foster child Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips) , a young boy with an empty stair, selectively mute since witnessing the death of Laura’s biological child who drowned in the family’s backyard pool. His lifeless stare and the accompanying rising score instantly create an unease from the screen that is carried throughout whenever “Oli” enters the frame. It’s a strange and even tense arrangement from the beginning as Laura only wanted to take in Piper due to her reminding her of the daughter she lost, who was also blind.
Laura is a strange one, clearly still grieving over the loss of her own daughter. One could forgive her for throwing herself into helping those less fortunate within the foster system, but things take a turn for the worst during the funeral of Andy and Piper’s father. Her insistence on Andy kissing the corpse goodbye while claiming “It’s tradition” is unnerving and highlights there is something more going on behind the scenes with Laura and she is making sure Andy isn’t going to be around to get in her way.
I found myself being absolutely disgusted with Laura, that is definitively the point. She is uncomfortable to watch manipulating the siblings against each other and her specific and almost cartoon villainous focus on dismantling Andy of any sense of self he has left. She coaxes him into trusting her, using her time as a therapist to get information out of the grieving teenager, only to then use those secrets and underlying issues against him driving him slowly into a sort of madness.
The Phillippou brothers have again shown they are brilliant at their craft and seeing the whole picture. They use sound design to craft a deep, dark and tense mood from the opening credits that doesn’t let you go until the final moments. Visually their use of different camera techniques gives you a sense that you are seeing parts of the world in a way that Piper would which aren’t glaringly obvious until you sit and start to digest what you’ve just witnessed. Bring Her Back uses practical effects only sparingly to shock you at times when you least expect it. The realism behind them is uncanny proving that they are still the best method to portray certain moments.
Unfortunately Bring Her Back didn’t connect with me in a way that I had hoped. It is ultimately a dramatic film about loss, grief and the painful extremes that some will go to conquer those feelings. The horror and supernatural elements are never fully fleshed out leaving me with more questions than answers. That being said I cannot take away from the fact that everyone in Bring Her Back gives a performance worthy of the watch. Hawkins increasingly unraveling Laura will disgust you and be genuinely uncomfortable to watch. Wren Phillips manages to portray Oliver hauntingly well with barely a word spoken while the innocence of Barret and Wong along with their natural chemistry has you invested in their sibling bond from the beginning.
Bring Her Back is going to be a divisive movie, I can see fans either loving or hating this one. Much to the same end as the Phillippou brothers first film. While its horror elements left me wanting more, its disturbing story and performances poise it to be one of 2025’s most talked about in the horror genre.
Bring Her Back is out in cinemas now.
