TORONTO – Jack doesn’t know why he’s been invited to attend the memorial service of a mother, Elizabeth, he never knew. Much to the frustration of his boyfriend, he’s traveled to New Zealand from Australia after receiving a call from Jill, Elizabeth’s now widowed wife. After arriving at Elizabeth and Jill’s striking, modern enclave in the winter-ish mountains, he’s surprised to learn not only does Jill not remember calling him, but the deceased’s sister, Helen, is horrified that he’s there at all. Those are the opening moments of Samuel Van Grinsven’s slow-burning paranormal drama “Went Up The Hill,” one of four films to open the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.
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Jill never knew her wife had a son, but the fact Helen is so adamant he leave the premises is enough for her to encourage him to stick around and crash in their home instead of a local hotel. Shockingly, over the course of his first two nights, the pair discover that when they fall asleep, the spirit of Elizabeth is possessing either of their bodies. Why her soul is doing this is initially unclear, but it’s too tantalizing an opportunity for Jack and Jill to flee. For Jack, it’s a chance to learn why she let them take him away when he was a young child (we’ll assume “them” are social services). For Jill, who is still in mourning, the possession is perhaps more traumatic as Elizabeth increasingly demands she drown herself in the icy lake nearby and joins her on the other side. Again, neither Jack nor Jill, yes, a pair, just like the nursery rhyme, realize it might be a good time to run for their lives.
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This unsettled soul works relatively slowly, playing with and poking the two strangers just enough to suit their whims. When Elizabeth uses her son’s body to have intercourse with Jill without his knowledge (or consent, for that matter), Jack is utterly horrified. He’s so overwhelmed he races out of the compound without shoes, walking barefoot on the cold gravel without a second thought. But he still doesn’t have his answer. He still doesn’t know why he was abandoned. So, while almost anyone else would get on the quickest flight to Melbourne and relative safety, he stays.
As the possessions continue, Jack and Jill naively believe they are increasingly in control of the situation. A tense third act makes it clear that’s not the case. The problem is despite Van Grinsven’s beguiling aesthetic vision, the exploration of these pained individuals languishes more than it should. Concurrently, while Kreips is superb as both Jill and her possessed state (we’d expect no less), Montgomery falters. He’s a talented actor, but this challenge is out of his current skill set. The proceedings also perk up a notch every time Sarah Peirse appears on screen as Helen, the unexpected voice of reason.
Granted, Grinsven and co-writer Jory Anast have lofty aspirations with their insular ghost story. They are attempting to craft a tale where two characters, who have been abused by the same individual, submit themselves to more pain and suffering to come to terms with their past trauma. Placing these stories in a supernatural genre makes it potentially more intriguing but, in this particular case, makes it too difficult to ground the proceedings. We should care more about Jack’s childhood. We should feel more empathy for the abuse Jill suffered at Elizabeth’s hands (abuse perhaps too subtly conveyed overall). But, we also just want them to get out of that damn house because their reasoning to stay is increasingly hard to believe. Sure, it’s impressive that we want them to survive, but once you lose that suspension of disbelief overall? Well, even pretty houses implode. [C+]
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