The Reel Review
An aging movie star recovering from a double mastectomy travels with her caregiver to a remote wellness retreat in the Scottish Highlands which claims its healing properties come from the ashy soil where hundreds of witches were burned at the stake 300 years ago. During her dreams, she starts to exact revenge against a terrible director from her past, in this supernatural horror starring Alice Krige (Gretel & Hansel, Silent Hill).
At its heart, She Will is a visually trippy, atmospheric arthouse film about feminist vengeance in the #MeToo era. In her feature film directorial debut, Charlotte Colbert, working from a screenplay she wrote with Kitty Percy, uses the stark beauty of the Scottish Highlands and a chilling score as a foreboding backdrop. Krige, as usual, is fiendishly good, with an ensemble cast that includes Kota Eberhardt (X-Men: Dark Phoenix), Malcolm McDowell as the creepy director, and Rupert Everett (My Best Friend’s Wedding) as a buffoonish guru/artist who leads his flaky followers at the retreat in silly New Age art classes.
The problem with the oddly named She Will is in the film’s third act – which, after a really languid, mood setting first hour, feels frenetic and rushed. The predictable story is more slightly unsettling and bizarre than even remotely scary, its messages about unresolved trauma, misogyny and aging clouded by way too much arthouse pretentiousness.
REEL FACTS
• South African born Alice Krige planned to become a clinical psychologist before getting the acting bug in college, which led her to London’s Central School of Speech and Drama. She and her husband Paul Schoolman live in the United States.
• Both Malcolm McDowell and Alice Krige have played villains in the Star Trek film franchise. McDowell played Dr. Tolian Soran in 1994’s Star Trek: Generations, and Krige played the Borg Queen, first in 1996’s Star Trek: First Contact, reprising her role in subsequent productions.
• She Will was filmed in Glasgow and Aviemore, Scotland.
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