Home­bound

Home is, as they say, where the heart is – that for­ma­tive place where the secret codes and pri­vate rites of fam­i­ly liv­ing embed them­selves from an ear­ly age and devel­op into deep-seat­ed habits, mak­ing you who you are. It is the place where you always feel wel­come, always quick­ly redis­cov­er the games and rhythms of your child­hood, always feel, well, at home – unless of course you are an outsider.

That is the crux in writer/​director Sebas­t­ian Godwin’s fea­ture debut. For Richard (Tom Good­man-Hill) may very much be home­bound as he dri­ves to the iso­lat­ed coun­try estate where he used to live to vis­it his ex-wife Nina, their teen chil­dren Lucia (Hat­tie Gotobed), Ralph (Lukas Rolfe) and their youngest Anna (Raf­fiel­la Chap­man) who is cel­e­brat­ing her birth­day, but for Richard’s new wife Hol­ly (Ais­ling Lof­tus), the place is not a home but a mere house. Indeed, it is a house filled with anx­i­ety, giv­en that Hol­ly is under immense pres­sure to get on and fit in with both the woman whom she has replaced in Richard’s affec­tions, and with his exist­ing chil­dren, even as she tries to rec­on­cile her­self to her new­ly con­ferred sta­tus as step­moth­er. Mar­ry­ing Richard has brought with it a whole new fam­i­ly – and on their home ter­ri­to­ry, Hol­ly is very much the interloper.

Home­bound begins with an auto­mat­ic voice mes­sage: ​“The mobile num­ber you’ve called is cur­rent­ly unavail­able.” As Richard and Hol­ly dri­ve out to the house, Nina is not answer­ing her phone. Nor is she – or any­one – at the house when the cou­ple arrives. Grad­u­al­ly the chil­dren will all emerge from the wood­work, but Nina’s con­tin­u­ing absence comes to dom­i­nate this goth­ic nar­ra­tive of locked doors, creak­ing hall­ways and dark emp­ty base­ments where Nina (for­ev­er) leaves her ghost­ly traces. Mean­while Hol­ly observes the lov­ing, upset Anna, and the furtive, con­spir­a­to­r­i­al, rough-play­ing Lucia and Ralph – and also sees sides of Richard, now com­fort­ably back in the home envi­ron­ment where he rules the roost, that she has nev­er noticed before. Richard drinks far too much, and when he is not overindulging his way­ward chil­dren, is dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly stern in his pun­ish­ments. It is a dys­func­tion­al set-up – like every house­hold but also like no oth­er – and as we see it through Holly’s eyes, we dis­cern all its unnerv­ing, alien­at­ing mystery.

“Your kids are inter­est­ing,” Hol­ly tells Richard the first moment they get alone togeth­er in the house. ​“They take after their father,” he replies, laugh­ing – and there is the rub. Godwin’s uneasy, uncan­ny fea­ture expos­es the cracks and kinks, the ruts and rot, in the struc­ture of a(ny) fam­i­ly, and the poi­so­nous lega­cy that all this leaves from one gen­er­a­tion to the next. At first so des­per­ate to be accept­ed as a part of this her­met­ic clan. Hol­ly will come to view its hid­den ten­sions and vio­lence, its game-play­ing and gaslight­ing, with revul­sion and hor­ror. Home­bound is a domes­tic psy­chodra­ma, but buried some­where in its tex­ture is a tragedy – or per­haps a crime – whose pre­cise out­line remains an enig­ma. Short yet ellip­ti­cal and haunt­ing, and keep­ing its secrets, this is an assured call­ing card announc­ing Godwin’s arrival in the hor­ror family.

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