A Ban­quet

If you’ve ever scrolled through Insta­gram for recipes you’ll notice how the cam­era hov­ers above the food, look­ing down like a deity on ingre­di­ents and mouth-water­ing dish­es. Then comes the algo­rithm, sug­gest­ing healthy options and a selec­tion of exer­cise rou­tines to get a flat­ter tum­my. Next up: per­haps obses­sive­ly wor­ry­ing about appearance…

Direc­tor Ruth Pax­ton mim­ics the float­ing angles of social media and mod­ern cook­ery shows, glid­ing her cam­era grace­ful­ly over deli­cious meals, all served up with threat­en­ing pitch-black cutlery.

Yet, this isn’t anoth­er obvi­ous take­down of the ills and pres­sures of con­tem­po­rary life. The screen­play, writ­ten by Justin Bull and trans­posed from its orig­i­nal US set­ting to the UK by Pax­ton, is more nuanced than that. It’s a psy­cho­log­i­cal hor­ror con­cerned with three gen­er­a­tions of well-to-do women and their dif­fer­ing approach­es to men­tal health and dis­or­dered eating.

It’s a film about con­trol and per­fec­tion that pos­es ques­tions about faith and wor­ship in the mod­ern world, while also toss­ing in obser­va­tions on moth­er­ly love, hered­i­tary mal­adies and loss of hope. It exam­ines its char­ac­ters as they inter­act with dis­com­fort­ing close-ups of their faces, mouths and the items they consume.

Grand­moth­er June (Lind­say Dun­can – a class act), is a cold and unwel­come inter­lop­er in her daugh­ter Holly’s (Sien­na Guil­lo­ry) large Streatham home – a place where her ill hus­band took his own life and to which her teenaged daugh­ter Bet­sey (Jes­si­ca Alexan­der) was witness.

When Bet­sey returns home from a par­ty after see­ing a blood moon, she claims her body is no longer her own and refus­es to eat. The toll this takes on the fam­i­ly unit, includ­ing her younger sis­ter Izzy (Ruby Stokes) is treat­ed like a sin­is­ter infec­tion that keeps spread­ing until the women begin to retreat from their dai­ly lives into iso­la­tion and terror.

The tor­ment of dis­or­dered eat­ing rings true, from the des­per­ate acts of devo­tion by fam­i­ly mem­bers to the way the pierc­ing sound design makes the scrap­ing of a plate of food become a tru­ly hor­ri­fy­ing prospect. The film boasts great per­for­mances from Dun­can and Guil­lo­ry, whose bit­ter exchanges burn with fiery inten­si­ty, and through­out, Alexan­der con­veys Betsey’s anx­i­eties with impres­sive physicality.

Yet, the film’s many ideas aren’t always com­mu­ni­cat­ed con­vinc­ing­ly in con­ver­sa­tion and the visu­als are a tad over­fa­mil­iar, bring­ing to mind Lars von Tri­er​’s Melan­cho­lia and Joachim Tri­er​’s Thel­ma.

How­ev­er, Pax­ton is mas­ter­ful at cre­at­ing an atmos­phere of dread, using pre­cise fram­ing and pow­er­ful chiaroscuro light­ing to toy with sym­bol­ism from Japan­ese folk­lore, Greek mythol­o­gy and mod­ern art. Night­mar­ish images are exquis­ite­ly brought to life with icky Cro­nen­ber­gian SFX work from Dan Mar­tin, and the pro­duc­tion design by Sofia Stoc­co does a glo­ri­ous job of giv­ing the impres­sion of the life being sucked out of the room.

The infer­nal inte­ri­ors in jux­ta­po­si­tion with the lush out­doors gives the star­tling effect that the women are impris­oned in a suf­fo­cat­ing ter­rar­i­um with nature watch­ing as they decay.

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