Returning from the dead occupies a curious position within human storytelling, with resurrection seen as divine on the one hand and reanimation as sin against nature on the other. Within cinema, bringing back the dead is as old as horror itself, with Japanese film Resurrection of a Corpse appearing in the late 19th century. The first Frankenstein film adaptation appeared in 1910, and Mary Shelley’s classic novel from nearly 100 years earlier transcends the idea of simply restoring life; mad science instead actually creates life out of dead parts. Laura Moss’ Birth/Rebirth deals with both restoring and creating life from a women-centric perspective, and in so doing, she uses the love and desperation of motherhood to inject new life into classic tropes.
The film revolves around two women, united in the same unnatural goal, but for very different reasons. Forensic pathologist Dr. Rose Casper (Marin Ireland) is the brains of the operation, while nurse Celie (Judy Reyes) is the beating heart. They cross paths when Rose’s six-year-old daughter, Lila (A.J. Lister), dies from bacterial meningitis, and Rose, who works in the morgue, steals the body. Sensing this might be more than a chain-of-custody mishap, Celie tracks down Rose at her apartment, hoping for information on the location of her daughter’s corpse. Instead, she finds Lila connected to IVs and medical equipment inside Rose’s home, the young girl unconscious but very much alive. When Rose explains she’s been working on an experimental curative process, Celie naturally asks, “For meningitis?” “For death,” Rose explains.
While the restorative solution she’s created works, it’s not a permanent fix. They will need a steady supply of biological material from genetically similar pregnant women in order to keep the girl—and the potbellied pig she first resurrected weeks previously—alive. The most ethical method Rose has found of harvesting this material is to masturbate all-too-willing barflies in restroom stalls and then inseminate herself at home so she can induce abortion. When that’s no longer an option, Rose and Celie, who begin living together so they can juggle professional obligations while also giving Lila around the clock care, must seek out this material through increasingly unethical and immoral means.
As Rose, Ireland brings a singularly focused intensity to the mad doctor archetype. Blunt, logical and cold, she recalls a less campy version of Jeffrey Combs’ Herbert West in 1985’s Re-Animator. Both have created a restorative serum and both will stop at nothing to prove that it works. However, Rose is also shown to have some emotion under her odd, steely demeanor. Even though Celie finds a video of Rose methodically testing reflexes on her deceased mother’s flayed-open arm, it’s clear the degeneration and death of her mother affected Rose, perhaps acting as the catalyst for her scientific obsession with resurrecting the dead. Similarly, Celie is more concerned with ethical considerations early on, but as Lila eventually wakes and shows some semblance of recognition for her mother, Celie takes more extreme measures to ensure her daughter doesn’t remain permanently dead.
Moss, who co-wrote the script with Brendan J. O’Brien, finds a way to instill moments of levity into such dark subject matter, and Birth/Rebirth never quite descends into the depths of pure horror, instead offering grimy drama. Plot holes abound when it comes to how effortlessly Rose and Celie are able to keep their medical malpractice and straight-up criminal actions from detection in a field known for impeccable attention to detail. And the film’s final 15 minutes feel entirely too rushed. Nevertheless, by highlighting the wellspring of love and cesspool of despair that comes with bringing life into the world, this film revitalizes the Frankenstein myth and remains a compelling watch from its inception.
Photo courtesy of IFC Films
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