SAINT MAUD (2021): FILM REVIEW

Saint Maud (MA15+)

Written and directed by Rose Glass

Starring Morfydd Clark, Jennifer Ehle, Lily Knight and Lily Frazer

Duration: 84 minutes

Now screening in select cinemas

Saint Maud is the feature debut from writer director Rose Glass, featuring Morfydd Clark in the titular role. It played here in Australia back in February of 2020 for the Fantastic Film Festival, and is getting a limited run now that I was very fortunate to see in the theatre. This is an extraordinary film that has been perhaps mistakenly marketed as a horror film, because while it certainly contains elements of horror, it functions much more coherently and strongly as a deeply sad character study about faith and loneliness. 

Morfydd Clark plays the titular Maud, a character we are introduced to very early on as having experienced trauma during her time as a nurse, and who we hear praying to God for guidance as she moves on to her next post. Her next post is that of a palliative care nurse for Amanda, played by Jennifer Ehle, a retired dancer with cancer. Before long Maud is convinced that her calling is not just to look after Amanda in her final days, but to save her soul, as Amanda is an atheist. 

What the film then does right up until its final few frames is walk a very fine line between ambiguity and objectivity, as we are never quite sure if the quasi-supernatural religious elements of the narrative are really happening or are just the delusions of someone so far disconnected from the rest of the world. When Maud prays to God she experiences what can only be described as sexual ecstasy. We aren't sure if we are led to believe her experience of levitation and religious heights is a legitimate religious experience or the result of an epileptic fit triggered by fireworks. Is the voice of God (which is apparently Mrofydd Clark speaking Welsh, pitched down) a real thing, or is it delusion? These questions become more and more about plot elements absolutely central to the narrative as it develops, lending the film not only a real sense of mystery and tension, but also a deep sense of melancholy. Maud is, to the other characters and to us, a person of real pity, and part of the tension of the film is figuring out if we are meant to either feel sorry for her or be intimidated by her. 

It does a really great job of hinting at the past traumas that inform her life in a way that supplies the emotional backstory while leaving the mystery intact. In terms of narrative, that is all I am going to say, because I really was compelled by my complete lack of knowledge of where this film was going from just about the half way mark. Suffice it to say that I was completely shocked, in awe, and disturbed in a way that I really wasn't expecting. In terms of horror cinema, there are staples; a big, empty house at night, small amounts of wince-inducing injury detail, visual nods to classic possession cinema, and a heroine that feels like she could unravel at any point. Ideas of obsession and blind faith are collided in a way that results in some of the most uncomfortable character moments I've seen in a while, and they elevate what visually is nothing groundbreaking in terms of horror cinema to something really unique and interesting. The score is worth mentioning, too; there are moments when it swells and starts cranking the tension without any visual indication of what we are meant to be wary of, something that pays off more and more as the film continues, creating a real sense of paranoia and tension. 

It's a film that I haven't really stopped thinking about since I saw it the other day, and one that I really want to dissect in terms of its ending. I won't do that here, because I really think that you should just go and see it and dive into the conversation that it will inevitably start between you and whoever you see it with. It's really extraordinary.