Things Heard & Seen (2021)

April 29, 2021 8:29 PM

When Catherine moves from Manhattan to a remote farm hour with her husband, she discovers that both her husband and her new home harbor secrets.

Catherine Clare reluctantly trades life in 1980s Manhattan for a remote home in the tiny hamlet of Chosen, New York, after her husband George lands a job teaching art history at a small Hudson Valley college. Even as she does her best to transform the old dairy farm into a place where young daughter Franny will be happy, Catherine increasingly finds herself isolated and alone. In addition, strange things happen at the farm: phantom smells, flickering electricity, and erratic appliances. George insists that Catherine is over re-acting, but when the department chair, Floyd, offers Catherine a seance, she takes him up on the offer.

What secrets does her new home harbor? What links George to this ghostly presence?

posted by miss-lapin (4 comments total)

It's a ghost story in which the ghosts are entirely irrelevant. I was surprised how little effect they had on the plot and how little power over the outcome. A lot of stuff about Emanuel Swedenborg, which was a name I had not encountered for quite some time.
posted by SPrintF at 8:57 PM on April 30, 2021

I felt let down by this film, which began with promise. The trailer sells it as horror, but it’s more a gothic thriller. Its most enjoyable moments are references to other, better films: in particular, Don’t Look Now, to which it owes a great debt (some of the more obvious references include a scene in which two older women, one blind, give the protagonist information; another sees our protagonist restoring church artwork while on high scaffolding).

I wanted to spend more time with the historical society, the brothers, Justine the weaver, the local spiritualists/Swedenborg superfans. I was hugely disappointed Justine’s collective of interesting women didn’t turn out to be an actual coven. And the ending was bizarre and underwhelming.

Also: shittiest Tom Ripley ever.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 11:48 PM on April 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

Apparently this movie is based on a book. My understanding of the book is there is a lot more philosophy some of which made it into the movie and a lot of which didn't.

I agree that it was very uneven and ultimately disappointing.
posted by miss-lapin at 8:39 AM on May 1, 2021

"You've worked here for less than a year now, right out from grad school, and we suddenly need a new chair? Of course, you're just a man for the job!" --a writer who isn't trying.
posted by meese at 9:14 PM on May 24, 2021 [2 favorites]