Homebound
A rambling stone house built in 1908 at the end of a long, winding forested country road, Richard driving, his new wife Holly by his side, exchanging loving looks as they approach the grounds. Is she ready for this, the first time meeting his ex-wife Nina and their three children, Ralph, Lucia and Anna? To meet them, yes, she says; to be their stepmother is quite another question…
The door unlocked, Nina is nowhere to be found; Richard explains it is not unknown for her to simply avoid engagements she finds uncomfortable, and that would certainly apply to this visit, the three children swaying from indifference to Holly to resentment, fuelled by their father’s indulgence of the teenagers with alcohol in lieu of the empty pantry, with defiance and hostility soon to follow.
Its UK premiere presented by FrightFest at the Glasgow Film Festival, the strength of director Sebastian Godwin’s feature debut Homebound is the casting of Lukas Rolfe, Hattie Gotobed and Raffiella Chapman as the precocious and self-sufficient trio of children who look on the arrival of their father and his new companion as an intrusion on the idyllic isolation they have enjoyed without supervision.
Frustratingly, as Richard and Holly, Tom Goodman-Hill and Aisling Loftus are left shortchanged by Godwin’s script, passive and accepting of the oddity of the situation and the unusual behaviour of the children, she apparently having married a man she knows almost nothing about and he so indulgent the question becomes whether he is complicit in whatever game the children are playing or simply a fool.
The inexplicable absence of food in the house leading to the killing of a goose rather than a quick trip to the supermarket, Lucia taking the knife from her brother and performing the bloody deed with cold efficiency, coupled with Richard’s generous measures of vodka, champagne and wine for his underage offspring followed by whisky for breakfast should trigger alarm bells for even the most obtuse of blushing brides.
Built around a single twist which is obvious to all but the two adults present, Homebound is The Cement Garden of Ian McEwan landscaped as country house Gothic, the sinister performances unable to overcome the absurdity of the premise or the infuriating fact that had the children expended slightly more effort in planning their uninvited guests would have remained oblivious and departed on schedule none the wiser.
Glasgow Film Festival concluded on Sunday 13th March
