Amulet (2020) Movie Drinking Game
Take a Drink: every time we see the amulet
Take a Drink: every time anybody dances weird
Take a Drink: every time we cut to the past
Do a Shot: for every birth
By: Henry J. Fromage (Three Beers) –
If you feel like it’s been awhile since you’ve seen Romola Garai in a big project, that’s for a reason. Sure, she’s done a couple smaller British films and some BBC work in the last decade, but she’s also been working on something else- this film, her directorial debut.
Amulet is about a Eastern European soldier with some clearly awful wartime memories (Alec Secareanu) who accepts the help of a nun (Imelda Staunton) who finds him wandering the London streets. She sets him up with a job helping a young woman (Carla Juri) and her unseen but clearly not quite right mother, but something ain’t quite right about this house…
A Toast
Garai works with her DP Laura Bellingham, herself shooting her feature debut, to craft gorgeous shot after shot- there are so many both visual and storytelling ideas on display here that it’s clear that Garai has a bunch more, even better films in her. She doesn’t hold anything back- utilizing a very audacious, throw it all at the wall approach that she mostly carries off admirably.
The ideas here aren’t limited only to quality craftsmanship- Garai also creates some truly bugfuck, squirm-inducing horror elements. You haven’t seen body horror like this in many a day, if ever- make no mistake, she delivers the horror goods.
Acting-wise, Carla Juri is a welcome sight again, and Alec Secareanu makes the most of a in retrospect complex role, but Imelda Staunton owns this flick. Man, she’s a legend.
Towards the end, you start to really see the feminist underpinnings of everything that happens. Oh boy this will enrage some keyboard warriors out there, and it glorious. It’s very clear that the initial idea for this ending came first, and a film was built around it, but it’s a pretty great, thoroughly disturbing and shudder-inducing idea.
Beer Two
Amulet is a super slow burn at the beginning, but this feint towards building character is undercut by the disorienting editing, so it’s just really slow in the end. All the time spent here doesn’t pay off in character nor fright, although, admittedly, some of it does in that final twist.
Beer Three
What you have in the end are two fairly straightforward stories cut to hell to obfuscate where the overall movie’s going, but which confuses more than misleads in the way Garai is going for. A bit tighter editing would have made this sing.
Verdict
Amulet takes a bit of time to really draw you in, but stick it out- Romola Garai has a devilish design after all that’s worth the investment.
Note: Amulet is available in theaters and on demand Friday, July 24th!
