BRING HER BACK - Mark Reviews Movies

Bring Her Back, A24

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 29, 2025

Fraternal directors Danny (who also co-wrote the script) and Michael Philippou take their time with the setup to Bring Her Back. That's both something to be appreciated and a significant reason this gradual descent into horror falls flat.

We believe these characters, each one trying to deal with grief in different ways, and relationships, while also seeing just how sinister the mourning process for one character has become. Once the material becomes about grisly violence and at least one unspeakable—because it would be a bit of spoiler and isn't exactly the sort of subject to raise so nonchalantly—thing, the movie seems solely determined to shock us, even at the expense of those characters and its more grounded elements.

The story here revolves around stepsiblings Andy (Billy Barratt) and Piper (Sora Wong), who share a father with whom the two live—at least at the very start. Piper has a visual impairment that only allows her to see colors and broad shapes, and as her older brother, Andy is helpful, patient, and compassionate with his sister. He'll spare her feelings, for example, when some classmates at school make fun of Piper as soon as she walks away, but they've developed a code word for when honesty is either wanted or needed at any given moment.

Their bond is threatened, however, when the two return home from school, find their father dead in bathroom, and are immediately put into the social services system. The initial plan of their case worker (played by Sally Anne-Upton) is to separate the siblings, because a foster parent has agreed to take in Piper but is reluctant to do the same for Andy. He's about to turn 18, for one thing, and for another, he has a history of some bad behavior.

Andy pleads his case and points out that he plans to apply to become Piper's legal guardian as soon as he turns of age. It's enough, apparently, to convince Laura (Sally Hawkins) to allow him to live in her home with Piper for three months until his birthday.

Laura has experienced loss, too. Her daughter drowned in the backyard pool, and when the three talk about death and grieving, Laura bluntly explains that the daughter's death nearly destroyed her. She clearly hasn't recovered.

By the way, the daughter was also partially blind, just like Piper, and the way Laura literally and figuratively clings to the teenager now under her care is just the first sign that something really isn't right with the foster mother. Hawkins' performance is quite notable for how she makes Laura sympathetic and unsettling, and even when that second characteristic takes over the character to such extremes that the first one is not longer an option, we at least understand Laura to some degree.

For as much comprehension of these characters as it possesses and as thoughtful as its depiction of grief can be, the movie becomes increasingly cruel as the truth of what's going on here is revealed. No character is spared is that harshness on the part of the screenplay, written by the one director and Bill Hinzman, but its most significant target is a young boy named Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), who is presented as Laura's second child—although to confirm or deny that assumption would be to undermine one of the later turns of the plot.

His relationship to Laura or the lack thereof is inconsequential to the broader point of why the character is such an undeniably sore spot throughout the movie. The poor kid exists here simply to be tormented, be tortured, be otherwise abused, and inflict pain on others and himself. Oliver is at best an empty plot device, with the nature of his role in the story revealed by some eerie VHS tapes of an unholy ritual, and at worst a means for the filmmakers to make us squirm in horror at what happens to the boy.

One such scene involves a large knife, and whatever one might anticipate to happen when the kid, who is seen harming the family cat on at least two occasions, gets a hold of the blade is almost certainly not what actually does happen. The scene is sickening on account of its graphic detail, shown in close-up, but it's mainly sick, because the moment cements that Oliver is little more than a twisted running joke of sorts. That the screenplay is so vague about the process and mythology of what's going on behind the scenes of Laura's scheme only makes the kid's presence in the story seem more unnecessary, except that it allows him to be constantly abused on a physical and, apparently, spiritual level.

Otherwise, the vagueness is its own issue, as is how Laura's plan, which starts by gaslighting Andy into believing that his grief and own past abuse has made him act out of character, hinges on an absurd notion that the filmmakers barely explain. The only sillier thing about it, perhaps, is how much other people trust the character enough, despite some damning accusations, to allow the third act to happen. Bring Her Back begins in a place of and explores some painful truths about grief, only to become a horror show that's too exploitative and ridiculous to take seriously.

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