Things are pretty much a mess for Belinda and Norman.
They’re both good at their chosen professions, to be sure. But Norman is struggling to scrape his way up from the bottom of the heap at his law firm. He’s rarely home and always busy. And the very pregnant Belinda just got pushed out of her non-tenured teaching job. She can’t help but think it’s because she’s pregnant. (And because she’s Black, she says.)
To top it all off, the couple’s credit cards are beginning to cry uncle.
That’s when an opportunity comes along. Well, opportunity is probably too strong a word. Let’s say that an option presents itself.
Norman’s dad has just passed away, you see. His stepmother Solange gives him the call. Then, when Norman and Belinda attend a rather creepy funeral at a rather unsettling Pentecostal church, they’re offered a tempting deal—tempting for Belinda anyway.
Solange offers to sign over the money from Norman’s father’s estate—a sizable amount, mind you—if Norman and Belinda simply allow her to move in with them for her few remaining years. Solange doesn’t need much space, she says. She’ll stay to herself, she promises. She just wants to be with family before she shuffles off this mortal coil.
Norman instantly balks at the idea. All he can remember is the woman’s Bible-thumping parental ways—an approach that felt just shy of Nazi internment.
Belinda, however, is much more open to the idea.
I mean, yeah, this ancient, hunched woman thumps around with two canes like a Halloween scare-house spider. And she speaks endlessly of Jesus, between Scripture quotes and unintelligible prayers in tongues. For that matter her Southern accent is so thick you almost need an interpreter to understand anything she says.
But …
Did you see how many zeroes were on that ledger? They could pay off their mortgage. They could furnish the nursery. How much trouble could a little old lady be? I mean, she’s can’t be much younger than dirt. Her residency won’t be all that long. So, Norman gives in.
However, as Norman jumps back into his always-gone hustle for a permanent place at the firm, Belinda has to cover things at home. And Solange isn’t as easygoing as she had hoped. The woman starts tacking up crosses and pictures of Jesus everywhere. She complains. Ridicules. Grasps for control.
When Belinda pushes back a bit against Solange’s domineering crusade, the old woman’s racist attitudes peek through. And then senior incontinence raises its ugly head. (The kind that a mere adult diaper—or ten—won’t hold.)
With Norman gone, things are once again a mess for Belinda. A very, very big mess.
Belinda is initially very patient and tenderhearted as she attempts to welcome Solange into her home, despite what Solange tends to dole out in return.
It’s also quite evident that Norman loves his wife. (However, his support of her is sorely lacking.)
There are many, many mentions of Jesus and God’s grace in the dialogue, all peppered with prayers and scriptural quotes. And Solange slowly pins up crosses, pictures of Jesus and religious iconography around Belinda and Norman’s house.
We’re also told that as a boy, Norman wouldn’t be allowed to eat until he sang “Jesus Loves Me” at the dinner table. And Solange believes that the Holy Spirit gives her special signs and wonders.
However, all of that—including Belinda and Norman’s visit to a church funeral service—is viewed through a somewhat sinister lens. This is not a “horror” film in the purest sense. But faith in Jesus takes on a dark, even sinister, hue here. Solange, her church members and the faith that drives her are all painted as being creepy and sometimes downright evil.
For instance, after Belinda goes into the hospital to give birth via a C-section delivery, she returns home to find the living room filled with a Bible study group. The group forcefully draws Belinda into their midst, pulls off her bandages and begins praying in tongues over her while touching her bare stomach and C-section scar. They whisper-pray while flicking their tongues in and out of their mouths like a nest of tangled and hissing snakes.
Solange may speak repeatedly of Jesus’ love and grace, but the reality of that healing love is never on display. The closest representation is the pastor of Solange’s church. He says Solange and her husband once prayed over him and cured his smoking habit. (“Along with Nicorette,” he adds.) Solange notes her belief that Lucifer is behind menopause.
Belinda is a college-level anthropology teacher. We see tablets and statues of ancient gods and goddesses in her class and at home. Solange hangs a Christian fish necklace over one of Belinda’s tablets. Then, later, Belinda’s newborn daughter won’t stop crying unless that fish necklace is hung near her bassinette.
The Front Room‘s score contains several hymns and songs about Jesus.
Norman jumps up shirtless out of bed. We also see the couple in bed having sex. (This short scene is completely in silhouette, but it’s implied that Belinda is naked.)
Belinda breastfeeds or attempts to breastfeed baby Laurie several times (just offscreen). However, Belinda has several dreams or visions of Solange breastfeeding Laurie (with some six bared breasts), and later the old woman breastfeeds Norman. Norman then sits up from his feeding with his mouth covered in breastmilk.
Solange also sits naked in the bathtub. (The camera focuses on her upper chest, sagging shoulders and bald head.)
Someone is violently suffocated. Solange purposely slams her own head down on the corner of a coffee table, sitting back up with a split lip, a broken tooth and a face covered in blood.
Belinda dreams of a bathtub filled with a pulsing red goop that might represent blood or bodily tissue of some sort. During arguments with Belinda, Solange sometimes stumbles or falls over. In one such case, she begins to pray, and Belinda collapses in pain.
Norman rushes Belinda to the hospital, where doctors quickly order a C-section for her to give birth to baby Laurie. We see a doctor position a scalpel on her pregnant abdomen and then, in silhouette (as if from behind a shear screen), we see the baby and umbilical cord pulled forth. We later see the C-section scar on Belinda’s lower stomach.
Norman discovers teeth marks on baby Laurie’s arm.
There are 10 f-words and four s-words in the dialogue along, with uses of “a–” and “h—.” Jesus and God’s names are abused eight times total (including two of the latter paired with “d–n.”
None.
We see repeated instances of Solange coughing up a mustard-like phlegm and/or leaving other foul and smelly bodily fluid messes on her bed, the sofa, the carpet and smeared across doors and walls. We see her being helped to the bathroom while dressed in an overflowing adult diaper, its goopy contents splashing out onto the floor. (In numerous cases she smiles at Belinda during these instances to indicate that the befouling mess is a punishing choice she has purposely aimed in Belinda’s direction.)
Solange proudly displays a “Daughter of the Confederacy” certificate to taunt Belinda with her racist background. Solange also laughs and jeers when her Black daughter-in-law points out obvious racist comments she’s made. Belinda and Solange argue over texts that “prop up white men history.”
During one such argument at the dinner table, Solange ends up falling to the ground, raising her backside and passing a copious amount of putrid gas. The camera lingers several times on shots of a toilet bowl filled with bodily waste Solange has deposited there.
There are moments when directors Max and Sam Eggers use recognizable horror tropes to wink at the idea that The Front Room might turn into some kind of horror pic. But that’s all a ruse. This movie avoids demonic scares completely and centers on domestic wickedness instead.
That’s not to say that there are no spiritual elements here. The film uses actress Kathryn Hunter’s home-dominating and purposely incontinent stepmother character to smear doors, walls, beds, toilet bowls and … Christianity in equal measure. By association, having faith in Jesus is presented as being racist, socially disturbing, evil and altogether repugnant.
Add in nasty profanity, geriatric nudity, murder and sploshed excrement, and you’ve got a movie that’s disturbing, to be sure. It’s also a total, uh, waste of your time.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
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