Now available on DVD
Cast:
Roger Lloyd-Pack as Donald Brocklebank
Leo Bill as James Brocklebank
Kate Fahy as Nancy Brocklebank
Sarah Ball as Nurse Mary
Directed by Simon Rumley
Review:
Too often, modern filmmakers take a sadly reductive approach to the horror genre. In today’s play-it-safe climate, it seems as if most contemporary filmmakers have forgotten that over the years, films as varied as Repulsion (1965), Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Clean, Shaven (1994), and Safe (1995) have challenged audiences to rethink their familiar concepts of horror. Given that, writer/director Simon Rumley’s bleak, UK-lensed psychodrama The Living and the Dead deserves some credit as the rare modern horror film looking to find ways to stretch the genre. Rumley also should be commended for his resourceful use of a low budget and for eliciting a round of excellent performances from his small cast. But as many admirable qualities that can be attributed to The Living and the Dead, there’s some serious screenplay flaws that keep it from being the indelible portrait of familial dysfunction that Rumley intends.
Set in the crumbling mansion of the Brocklebank family, The Living and the Dead uses clean, economic storytelling to introduce viewers to this once-affluent family who have fallen on hard times. Bankrupt and living in their sprawling but increasingly decrepit home, money seems to be the least of the family’s problems. The Lady of the house, Nancy (Kate Fahy), is bedridden due to an unspecified disease and while her husband Lord Donald (Roger Lloyd Pack) is on hand to attend to her, their financial concerns demand that he leave home for a time to raise funds in an effort to keep what little they have left. Unfortunately, the Brocklebank’s adult son, James (Leo Bill) is mentally ill â a situation which only compounds their difficulties. James’ actual condition is not named, although autism or schizophrenia may be likely candidates for his troubles. Preparing for his sudden trip, Lord Donald has arraigned for their usual visiting nurse to care for his wife while he’s away but James has other ideas.
Determined to prove himself to his father, James wants to establish himself as the man of the house while Donald is away. To accomplish this, James locks out the visiting nurse and tells his mother that he will be her sole caretaker in his father’s absence. As you might imagine, this news fails to put his helpless mother at ease. James’ tenure as man of the house goes well for about half a day, then complications arise.
Once James begins attending to his mother, The Living and the Dead becomes progressively less interesting. While it’d be wrong to call this a formulaic movie, at the same time, I couldn’t escape the feeling that too much about the film came across as too pat. For instance, while it can be attributed to lack of money on the Brocklebank’s part that James doesn’t have clothes that properly fit (or one could regard it as symbolic of James’ stunted development), I found it to be too much of an on-the-nose move to dress James in clothes that are at least one size too small for him. It’s just an obvious cue for the audience to see him as mentally ill before he even says a word â an instance of cinematic shorthand that works against Leo Bill’s sensitive performance.
And as things go wrong in James’ efforts to take care of his mother, Rumley’s script depicts James’ efforts as going wrong in all the ways that you’d expect them to. He over-medicates her; he prepares her bath water too hot, and so on. These scenes were so easy to anticipate in advance that I didn’t find it involving to watch them play out â despite the excellent performances of Bill and Fahy. More troublesome is the fact that so much of The Living and the Dead depends on its characters acting not just in a flawed manner but in ways so contrary to their own well-being and the well-being of those around them that it stretches credulity.
Specifically, much of what transpires in The Living and the Dead hinges on the choices that Lord Donald makes and even though we have to assume that much of what he does (or doesn’t do) comes from a place of pride or denial, it’s hard to believe that anyone would purposely ignore reality to the extent that this character does. Chiefly, it’s hard to accept that he wouldn’t have already either institutionalized James well before the point that the movie begins or have become much cagier about handling him. For this character, it may be his ego that prevents Donald from coping clearly with the fact that his only offspring is irrevocably damaged but it feels more like a case of Rumley as a writer being so geared towards tragedy that his characters can only make the wrong choices. And that just doesn’t feel dramatically valid.
As an example of how The Living and the Dead is predisposed towards disaster, when the visiting nurse arrives and finds that she can’t get into the Brocklebank home thanks to James’ quickly securing the doors ahead of her, she doesn’t force her way in even though she knows that there’s a sick woman inside who needs her care and that this woman’s only other company in the house is her mentally disturbed son. Not only does this nurse leave the property altogether rather than force her way in but when she does eventually return with the police, it’s a full day later! This story point seems dictated solely by the fact that Rumley needed the extra time for events to spiral out of control between James and his ailing mother before outside help arrived (clearly a single afternoon just wouldn’t do it!). In moments like these, the presence of Rumley’s hand as a writer is too evidently guiding events rather than situations evolving out of the believable actions of his characters.
Early on in The Living and the Dead, it’s hard not to feel a nerve being struck by the plight of Lord Donald. After all, at what point does a parent admit that they may not be able to properly care for their child? It’s a question to agonize over but my personal feeling is that after the child has nearly killed their mother is probably as good a time as any. That Lord Donald apparently feels otherwise puts the later half of The Living and the Dead at a serious disadvantage, no matter how earnestly the performers involved try to sell the actions of their characters.
With The Living and the Dead, Rumley is trying hard to do right by the horror genre. And on some points he succeeds â this is clearly isn’t a typical low budget horror film and from a production standpoint, Rumley and cinematographer Milton Kam have done admirable work with their limited budget. Also, it must be said that the main cast all deliver exceptional performances. But on the other hand, Rumley goes for cheap nihilism while sidestepping real psychological observation, leaving his film with a dramatic vacuum. The Living and the Dead may be an uncompromised effort but yet because Rumley insists that his characters should suffer, even when it isn’t entirely credible, the tragedy of the Brocklebanks seems like a forced breakdown.
