Actor and screenwriter Max Minghella has adapted Liz Jensen’s 2004 novel for the cinema; horror specialist Alexandre Aja directs, and the result is a supernatural mystery thriller, slightly overcooked and tonally odd – and uncertain if its juvenile lead is supposed to be cute or sinister. But it is watchable and even intriguing in its weird way.
Canadian star Sarah Gadon is in full Hitchcock-blonde mode as Natalie Drax, the mother of a strange, accident-prone boy called Louis (Aiden Longworth). Poor Louis tumbles from a cliff, after a confrontation with his violent stepfather Peter (Aaron Paul) during a family picnic, but miraculously survives in a coma and comes under the care of Dr Allan Pascal (Jamie Dornan), a specialist in sleepwalking and consciousness while in a vegetative state. Creepy stuff starts happening. It’s a bit ridiculous, but hits its own quirky stride – quite similar to Soderbergh’s thriller Side Effects in its way. Not a bad rental.
