Steal Away: A Simmering, Sexually Charged What-If Story About a Refugee-Purging Society
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B+
A movie that takes place five figurative minutes in the future, Clement Virgo’s Steal Away is a weirdly gothic, sexually charged tale that juggles issues of race, authoritarianism, women and “the other,” with an undertone of the occult.
Only one real place is mentioned in its near two hours, that being the Congo, erstwhile home to refugees Cécile (Mallori Johnson), a defiant and confident teen, and her supposed witch-doctor mother Mary (Isabelle Menal).
Cécile (Mallori Johnson) reworks Fanny’s (Angourie Rice) hair in Steal Away
Wherever they are now, it’s a world away from Africa, but it certainly seems familiar to us. Down every street are anti-refugee and anti-“illegal” signs, and armed immigration authorities prowling the streets, weapons in hand, looking for people who don’t look right. (All that’s missing is a mask, and they could be ICE).
A screen title-card references a place one stays before they find freedom, and there are several references to “heading North.” The narrative breadcrumbs suggest the North is Canada, and there’s certainly an Underground Railroad vibe to the last act.
But Steal Away is a movie that is really only effective when it has its feet planted in one place. That would be the countryside mansion, with its contingent of mostly-Black servants, where the sickly Florence (Lauren Lee Smith), a seemingly dementia stricken grandmother (Hilde Van Mieghem) and young Fanny (Angourie Rice) welcome female refugees and give them apparent comfort before sending them on their way. Most of them are dark-skinned, but at least one previous temporary resident had been a young woman who was apparently a Ukrainian refugee.
This location is where Virgo paints his most vivid character pictures, of an “ally,” Florence, who is also a socialite and takes bows in front of her patronizing bourgeois party guests, and of a 16-year-old daughter who is achingly intrigued by the sense of vibrant community that the displaced refugees have created out of nothing.
Fanny’s troublesome ascent into womanhood (read: menstrual accidents), and the accompanying notion that there is a better world outside her house leads her to friendship with Cécile that morphs into creepy emulation. She wants her very blonde hair braided like hers, wears her clothes, and spies on Cécile when she meets her boyfriend Rufus (Idrissa Sanogo) for an intimate encounter.
A filmmaker of Virgo’s calibre doesn’t create a mood like this without a sinister payoff. It seems many babies are conceived among the refugees with their eventual whereabouts unknown.
There are copious loose threads in this narrative, and having filled the viewer’s head with burning questions (Are they anchor babies? Is Florence a collaborator?), the last act is a bit of a disappointment.
It’s not that it isn’t an emotional and even action-heavy resolution to the mysteries of Florence’s home. I’ll just say it seems heavy-handed and unlikely and leave it at that.
That said, Steal Away is a simmering watch, a race-based mystery in a foreboding place that is hard to turn away from.
Steal Away. Directed by Clement Virgo. Written by Clement Virgo and Tamara Berger. Stars Angourie Rice, Mallori Johnson and Lauren Lee Smith. In theatres Friday, July 17.