“Sadists never understand why nobody else is enjoying his sadism as much as he is.”

We are only a few minutes into the 2022’s Resurrection when Rebecca Hall delivers this line.  It is obvious her character was at some point on the receiving end of such behavior, as she is trembling with barely restrained rage.

The intensity of Hall’s character is established through brief snippets of the various aspects of her highly compartmentalized life.  She is like a bento box where none of the portions may overlap onto another. 

She is highly efficient in the office, even stopping to sweep away a single bit of fluff on her otherwise immaculate desktop.  At home, she is generously loving towards, and eerily overprotective of, her daughter.  She has a married co-worker she summons for the occasional booty call. 

As exercise, she sprints as if possessed—as if she’s trying to chase down a car like Robert Patrick in T2 to kill the occupants inside.  I never thought about it before, but Hall would have been interesting as the Terminator in T3.

All this is thrown into chaos when she happens to see Tim Roth at a conference for whatever line of work she is in.  We don’t know anything about Roth yet, but Hall’s expressions are terrifying on their own.  It reminded me of Ellen Burstyn’s horrified expression in The Exorcist before we see the famous spider-walk sequence. 

Why she is in such fear of Roth is gradually revealed and, when it is, I don’t think anybody could say she doesn’t have the right to be terrified.  That said, when Hall reveals the full story to another character, something in it is so outlandish that I did start wondering if that part was embellished or invented, though perhaps not consciously.

This is a very suspenseful picture and much of that tension comes from Hall’s performance walking a razor-thin line.  At times, it seems the possibility she could be mentally disturbed is as likely as her facing a credible threat.  Perhaps the reality may be a bit of both.

An honest and deeply distressing aspect of the film is its portrayal of an abused person unable to fully undo that programming.  It made me think of many things, including attempts to deprogram former cult members.  You can tell that, regardless of what happens, Hall is never going to be completely free.

Ressurection is a very good movie, but not a great one.  It turns an unblinking eye towards the horror that is a susceptible person being groomed by a cruel manipulator, and how that damage can never be entirely reversed.  Some would say these characters had an appropriate S&M relationship, despite the power imbalance.  As for myself, I not only agree with that line of dialogue I singled out at the start of this essay, but I say the S in S&M stands for “Selfish”.

Dir: Andrew Semans

Starring Rebecca Hall, Tim Roth

Watched on Shudder