‘Broken Bird’: A Compelling and Poignant Gothic Horror Delves into the Macabre [FrightFest 2024 Review]
Death is obviously pervasive in horror, but sometimes the agony of grief and loneliness over the death of loved ones can be even more terrifying and haunting. Directed by Joanne Mitchell in her feature directorial debut, Gothic horror Broken Bird made its world premiere at FrightFest. Written by Dominic Brunt, it’s adapted from Mitchell and Tracey Sheals’s 2018 short film “Sibyl.” Rebecca Calder stars as Sibyl, an idiosyncratic character working as a mortician in a funeral home, reminiscent of other morgue and mortuary-set horror films, like The Autopsy of Jane Doe and The Mortuary Collection.
Sibyl exhibits a strange, quirky demeanor and possesses an ethereal emotional fragility. A tragic car accident when she was young traumatizes Sibyl, catalyzing her to seek love and belonging through the macabre (taxidermy, Roman funerary practices, etc.). She exudes an easy familiarity with death, showing a delicate kindness with corpses, gently talking to deceased animals and humans. Broken Bird opens with a dead bird on its back, hands gently cradling it out of frame. Reciting poetry while driving, Sybil stops and talks to a dead fox in the road, putting it in her car. Working at a funeral home, she tells a deceased man that his wife is coming to see him.
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Sibyl writes poetry, which she recites at a pub’s poetry readings. As a child, she carried around a book of her poems. She imagines her father, who recited poetry too, in the crowd watching and encouraging. Starting a new job at a mortuary, Sibyl’s kind boss Mr. Thomas (James Fleet, awkwardly charming in Four Weddings and a Funeral), whose wife recently passed away, and eventually feels a fatherly affinity with Sybil.
Filled with an eerie Gothic ambiance, the film unveils shadowy hallways, glowing lights evocative of candlelight, and a dilapidated mansion. The score punctuates at times with tinkling like bells and other times with sinister strings.
Rebecca Calder gives a wonderful performance as she captures Sibyl’s complexities. Evoking tremendous sympathy, Sibyl’s creativity, pain, yearning, and loneliness feel heartbreakingly palpable. Meanwhile, Emma (Sacharissa Claxton), an emotionally precarious detective, juxtaposes Sibyl’s arc. Her concerned boss confronts her about her well-being and her drinking due to her missing son. Memories of Emma’s son wearing a superhero costume haunt her, particularly how she yelled at him for spilling milk. Emma drunkenly calls her ex-husband, telling him she misses him and their son. I wish Emma was fleshed out more as a character. Yet this speaks to the singularity of her overwhelming grief. And the film truly belongs to Sibyl.
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A meet-cute straight out of a rom-com, Sibyl literally bumps into Mark (Jay Taylor), who works at a Roman funerary museum. After a brief conversation, she imagines kissing him on her tiptoes, accompanied by a romantic score of swelling strings. She becomes enamored with him. While it initially appears a romance might blossom, Mark is engaged to Tina (Robyn Rainsford), fueling jealousy and rage in Sibyl.
Often romanticizing her life via scenarios out of period-piece movies, Sibyl imagines wearing a flapper dress with Mark in a tux as they kiss. In reality, she kisses her mirror. She cries as she wipes away the lipstick, realizing it’s only a dream. In one great tragic scene, Sibyl envisions herself wearing a gown dancing in a golden-lit ballroom. Yet she’s actually dancing amidst broken glass, the score slowly wheezing like a broken music box.
The gender differences in Sibyl’s behavior are intriguing. She only imagines her father watching and speaking to her, never her mother. She’s kind to Mark (although she kicks his bike after seeing him with his fiancée) and Mr. Thomas. But her behavior differs with women, where she’s often jealous of and competitive with them, whether it’s Tina or a woman poet (she eats chips loudly as a distraction while the woman passionately recites poetry). Although, she’s kind and supportive (at least in her mind) to a female funeral home customer. Perhaps Sibyl only feels competitive with women whom she believes encroach on her identity or perceived territory. Or perhaps this highlights how difficult it is for her to connect with people who are alive.
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Death touches each character in the film. The past perpetually haunts some. For some characters, grief becomes an obsession consuming their lives and warping their minds. Sibyl desperately wants a family, especially because of the loss of her family at a young age. Her behavior grows increasingly diabolical.
Building to a visceral emotional crescendo, I found Broken Bird a fairly predictable narrative, yet this didn’t detract from my enjoyment, as its foreseeability reifies the tragedy of doomed inevitability.
Anchored by a great lead performance, Broken Bird is a compelling, poignant, and atmospheric film with good visuals. Like some of my favorite achingly beautiful and heartbreaking horror films, like Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook and Natalie Erika James’s Relic, Broken Bird shows how grief, empathy, and sadness can weave through horror as evocatively as fear.
Summary
Anchored by a great lead performance, Broken Bird is a compelling, poignant, and atmospheric film with beautiful visuals.
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