Honey Bunch: Dark, Moody, Medical-Themed Thriller Bedevilled by Details
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B-
There is a point in the first act of Honey Bunch – Canadian filmmakers Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli’s gothic, medically themed mystery thriller – where mood alone suggests you might be watching something that will pay off.
Unfortunately, that mood simply sets expectations too high.
The story poses questions… so many intriguing questions, far too many to answer away as the movie tries to do in a wannabe shocking last act and “WTF?” ending.
Grace Glowicki is lost in an amnesiac fog in Honey Bunch.
But there’s no question that a secluded Victorian-style medical facility, with endless hallways and closed off rooms, is a ripe environment for creepiness and suspense. And while setting up the story, the film makes great use of its surroundings, courtesy of cinematographer Adam Crosby.
Young married couple Homer and Diana (Ben Petrie and Grace Glowicki) have been in love in flashbacks and narration, when we meet them in their current state en route to an apparently cutting-edge head trauma treatment centre. She remembers little from before the accident that sent her there. And as film time passes, we begin to suspect that the accounts of their marriage, courtesy of Homer, might not be entirely honest.
Other key characters in the institution include hostess Farah (Kate Dickie) and her husband Delwyn (the terrifically morbid character actor Julian Richings), the latter of whom is also a patient, whose mental state often deteriorates from scene to scene.
Its reputation notwithstanding, this is not, apparently, an institution that can stand on its success rate. Homer and Diana soon meet Joseph (Jason Isaacs) and his daughter Josephina (India Brown), who seems vivacious at first, but soon falls back into symptoms of her own head trauma.
The dismay of Josephina’s condition and her own troubling emergence of previously buried memories lead Diana to distrust her husband and to attempt escape. Needless to say, were she to succeed, this would be a shorter movie. (As it is, it seems overstuffed at just under two hours).
Without saying much about it, the denouement is of the “twist” type that is supposed to tie everything together – a narrative full-stop that is often associated with M. Night Shyamalan, but was rampant in the ‘70s (everything from “Soylent Green is people!” to “the Stepford wives are all robots!”). For that reason, Honey Bunch might have been better served by its inclusion at the Toronto International Film Festival if it were placed in the Midnight Madness programme, where audiences are more inclined to accept wonky turns and lapses in logic (think The Substance).
The confusion about who-is-what doesn’t help us connect with Grace and Ben, who are hard to buy as young erstwhile lovers. Although, scene-stealing supporting characters played by the likes of Richings and Isaacs, do breathe life into things.
With its dark palette and atmosphere, Honey Bunch could have been a simpler, more disturbing and pointed story. There’s enough there to suggest as much.
Honey Bunch. Written and directed by Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli. Starring Grace Glowicki, Ben Petrie and Jason Isaacs. In theatres January 23.