"Kindred" grips and makes one feel imprisoned by maddening design

Kindred (2020)

The term “psychological thriller” often gets thrown around willy-nilly, but “Kindred” is a true paranoid thriller rooted in complex psychology. Director Joe Marcantonio, who co-wrote the script with Jason McColgan, taps into new parental anxieties with his feature directorial debut and tells his story from the point-of-view of an expectant mother on the verge of losing all free will — and maybe even the new life she’s bringing into this world. The troubling, finely acted “Kindred” steadily simmers and grips, presenting gaslighting in a realistic fashion.

Charlotte (Tamara Lawrance) and Ben (Edward Holcroft) have plans to move from Scotland to Australia. First, they have to break the news to Ben’s mother, Margaret (Fiona Shaw), during a late lunch prepared by his caregiving step-brother Thomas (Jack Lowden) at the family manor. Mum does not take the news very well, acting as if her own son is abandoning her and the home that’s been in their family for nine generations. When Charlotte soon becomes pregnant—and none-too-excited about it—Ben suddenly dies in a freak accident. Margaret and Thomas give Charlotte unwanted hospitality that ends up making the pregnant mother feel more like a prisoner than family. With a chain on the gate of the manor, she isn’t going anywhere.

Why can’t Charlotte just go home? Thomas has already collected her things, and her former home has gone into foreclosure. Since she fainted and broke her phone, why hasn’t her phone been fixed yet? Thomas will get to it. Charlotte also wants to go to the hospital when she delivers her child, but Margaret and Thomas have already made arrangements for a house call with Dr. Richards (Anton Lesser). The viewer is always on the side of Charlotte and never ahead of her. A relative newcomer to the screen, Tamara Lawrance is extraordinarily magnetic in conveying an array of emotions, from grief to confusion, as she has her life stripped of all agency. Lawrance also brings a backbone to Charlotte, making several attempts to escape. The fact that Charlotte is Black is never brought to the surface as text; instead, it smartly remains as subtext.

Of the many cold, prickly matriarchs she has played—most memorable being Aunt Petunia in the “Harry Potter” films—Fiona Shaw is formidable yet not inhuman as Margaret. Her interactions with Charlotte throughout the film inform a lot about her, what drives her, where her loyalties lie, and how she mixes up love and ownership. To put it plainly, Margaret just wants what is growing inside Charlotte’s womb, so her family’s blood can live on. Playing the immensely devoted Thomas, Jack Lowden (2019’s “Fighting with My Family”) is never pigeonholed as just a pathetic creep, and he’s quite versatile in rounding out more dimensions. In a way, Thomas is a prisoner himself, subjected to doing Margaret’s bidding, and has been for quite a while.

“Kindred” is an adeptly crafted slow-burn. Director Joe Marcantonio has a firm grasp on character dynamics and gets compelling performances out of his main trio, which is key to not having to fully suspend disbelief. Even with a motif of ravens haunting Charlotte—a clear harbinger of doom—Marcantonio creates a palpable sense of imprisonment. He makes sure Charlotte’s predicament is not easily solved or compromised, and with room for suggestion, the film is never standardized into a facile question of “is she crazy or not?” By design, the experience is a maddening nightmare, and that’s part of what makes “Kindred” so disquieting. 

Grade: B +

IFC Midnight is releasing “Kindred” (100 min.) in select theaters, digital platforms and video on demand November 6, 2020.