The Front Room review – a strange­ly scat­a­log­i­cal cham­ber piece

Kathryn Hunter has been one of theatre’s strangest, most ver­sa­tile gems for over three decades now, and to see her per­form on stage is to wit­ness a true chameleon of an actor. Her lined, expres­sive face, dart­ing black eyes and tiny frame have enabled her to sculpt her body into any char­ac­ter – she’s been Puck, Cleopa­tra, and was the first woman ever to play King Lear pro­fes­sion­al­ly. Although she’s made a few film appear­ances over the years, it wasn’t until Hunter appeared in Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Mac­beth (as all three witch­es) that she began to book art­house cameos in earnest – the fact it took this long is a cry­ing shame.

The Front Room brings her biggest film role to date, and Hunter – armed with a Ken­tucky fried accent so swampy every sec­ond sen­tence is almost incom­pre­hen­si­ble – plays Solange, the wiz­ened, Bible-bash­ing step­moth­er of meek pub­lic defend­er Nor­man (Andrew Bur­nap). After the death of Norman’s father, Solange swift­ly moves into his home, lever­ag­ing her hefty inher­i­tance and frail nature against Nor­man and his good-natured, heav­i­ly preg­nant wife Belin­da (Brandy). The Front Room doesn’t wait long to reveal the obvi­ous: Solange is a bid­dy pow­ered exclu­sive­ly by racism, God’s love and col­lard greens, with a life­time mem­ber­ship in the Unit­ed Daugh­ters of the Confederacy.

It’s imme­di­ate­ly clear why Hunter was drawn to The Front Room; adapt­ed from Susan Hill’s short sto­ry, it’s a sur­pris­ing­ly ground­ed cham­ber piece that requires extra­or­di­nary phys­i­cal­i­ty from the actor. The mar­ket­ing teased some­thing in the vein of Rosemary’s Baby but direc­tors the Eggers Broth­ers (broth­ers to Robert, mak­ing their fea­ture debut here) are, in fact, odd­ly con­tent to stage The Front Room as more of a dark-sided dra­ma than an out-and-out hor­ror. It’s all very stagey and Hunter, inca­pable of giv­ing a dud per­for­mance, effort­less­ly sells Solange as a tack-sharp old woman who may have sin­is­ter designs for her incom­ing step-grandchild.

Hunter was excel­lent in The Tragedy of Mac­beth and mem­o­rably weird as Poor Things’ broth­el madam but The Front Room is the first screen role where she’s been allowed to real­ly flex her skillset as an actor. Her Solange is a nasty lit­tle gob­lin of a woman, hunched and shrill and phys­i­cal­ly aid­ed by two large canes that give her a man­tis-like sil­hou­ette. The Front Room nev­er quite edges towards the Grand Guig­nol histri­on­ics you might expect from the con­cept but the phys­i­cal­i­ty of the role is what’s most impres­sive – it’s not an easy per­for­mance in the slightest.

In the oth­er cor­ner of the ring is Brandy, mak­ing her very wel­come return to hor­ror some 26 years after she stole the show in I Still Know What You Did Last Sum­mer. As Belin­da is a woman at the end of her teth­er – she’s under­val­ued at work, unsup­port­ed by Nor­man, tasked with han­dling Solange and mask­ing her frus­tra­tion with patient smiles, all while in her third trimester – The Front Room most­ly relies on the injus­tice of her sit­u­a­tion as well as Brandy’s innate charm. It’s per­haps not the most reward­ing role in the world, par­tic­u­lar­ly oppo­site Hunter’s God-fear­ing vil­lain­ess, but we can hope that this paves the way for a Brandy renaissance.

But it’s worth men­tion­ing the piss­ing and shit­ting. When you sus­pect the Eggers Broth­ers might shift The Front Room into a more com­plex psy­cho­log­i­cal key, it resolves to just have Solange pee and poo every­where. I can­not over­state how often this hap­pens. If there was any doubt that hagsploita­tion is back (indeed, there is one scene where a heav­i­ly made-up Hunter looks uncan­ni­ly like Bald Demi Moore in The Sub­stance), The Front Room is here to mark its stinky ter­ri­to­ry. This is a lit­tle bit bananas as a cre­ative choice, but unfor­tu­nate­ly very effec­tive because it’s vis­cer­al­ly gross and it absolute­ly wouldn’t work with­out Hunter, who breathes far more life and moti­va­tion into Solange than the script does. Despite appear­ing car­toon­ish­ly fee­ble, Solange is clear­ly still in full pos­ses­sion of her fac­ul­ties, always with a cun­ning glint in her eye, and so she uses her body as a weapon against Nor­man and Belinda.

If you’re able to make peace with the fae­cal smears on the wall paint­ed by a cack­ling Olivi­er win­ner known for her phys­i­cal per­for­mances, The Front Room is an enter­tain­ing, mor­bid­ly fun­ny slice of per­verse B‑movie exploita­tion hor­ror. In the best way, it feels like some­thing Joan Craw­ford would have starred in the 60s. It’s unde­ni­able that Hunter has so much more to give to the hor­ror genre than shit­ting her­self but one hopes this is the begin­ning of a pro­lif­ic scream queen era for one of the great thes­pi­ans of today.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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