Meeting a romantic partner’s family for the first time can be awkward or even challenging, and one is left especially vulnerable when meeting a partner’s children. A situation rife with such social tension billows out into an atmosphere of dread in writer-director Sebastian Godwin’s debut feature, Homebound, as Holly (Aisling Loftus) heads to the British countryside with her fiancé, Richard (Tom Goodman-Hill), to celebrate the birthday of his youngest daughter. Holly will be meeting his three children (a couple of teenagers and a tween) for the first time, along with his ex-wife, Nina. As they roll up to the palatial estate, Holly wonders if she should remove her engagement ring in order to avoid making anyone uncomfortable. Richard reassures her that everything will be fine, even though the tone of the film from the outset informs the viewer that it certainly will not.
The happy couple let themselves into the home when no one answers the door. The house is oddly still. Finally, birthday girl Anna (Raffiela Chapman) appears, and is pleasant enough in her first interaction with Holly. Then, stern-faced older siblings Lucia (Hattie Gotobed) and Ralph (Lukas Rolfe) materialize as if from the ether, and it’s clear they’re not happy to have this new woman in their home, or perhaps even to see their father, a man who did, after all, run off on them sometime prior. But Richard is pleased as punch to be around his family again, and he’s not even all that put off when he receives a text from Nina informing him that she won’t be joining them.
Even as Richard is outwardly celebratory—weirdly pouring shots to toast with his children and breaking out champagne for them too, dancing with his new fiancée and kids, kissing Holly in front of his children more often than feels comfortable—he blithely disregards Holly at other moments. When they are seemingly playfully chasing geese around the courtyard, Holly grows disturbed when she realizes they’re going to slaughter the bird they caught (something Lucia does with a sinister smirk as blood spatters on her face). The next morning, Richard and the kids take off for the leaf-filled swimming pool some distance away on the grounds, leaving Holly to directly ask, “What about me?” as he seems less and less inclined to care about her comfort.
When outright physical aggression is directed at Holly by the children, under the guise of playfulness, the situation quickly reaches a breaking point and, when Nina’s prolonged absence grows more and more suspicious, things quickly spiral out of control. One minute, Richard is defending Holly, the next she’s running from him. Unfortunately, the effectively ominous atmosphere built up in this ultra-slim 71-minute psychodrama’s earlier moments unravels into predictability. Richard’s actions border on nonsensical, and the ambiguity of the film’s big reveal feels contrived rather than more organically enigmatic. As a result, Homebound comes off as a project with a strong premise, wrapped in a largely effective air of mystery, but it’s a film that ultimately gets tied down by half-baked character development and tired tropes.
Photo courtesy of Brainstorm Media
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