Things Heard & Seen
Amanda Seyfried and James Norton star in a Netflix ghost story that proves more intriguing than outright terrifying.
James Norton and Amanda Seyfried
Stop me if you’ve heard this before. An attractive young couple from the city, accompanied by the world’s prettiest four-year-old girl, move to the country. There they settle into a large, four-bedroom house that dates back to the 1800s' – and doesn’t have a neighbour in sight. Then the mother, Catherine Claire (Amanda Seyfried), senses that they are not alone. The lights in the nursery flicker ominously, there’s a strange smell that comes and goes and the piano plays all by itself. Oh, and the rocking chair takes on a life of its own. Then Catherine and her daughter, Franny (Ana Sophia Heger), start seeing a woman with her hair done up in a bun.
Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini’s film, adapted from Elizabeth Brundage’s novel All Things Cease to Appear, is playing games with us. Before Catherine leaves Manhattan, we see her in a church atop a towering platform restoring a religious mural. When she and her husband, George (James Norton), move to the rural backwater of Chosen, upstate New York, she encounters two elderly women, one of whom is blind. Hardened film enthusiasts may think they’ve walked into a spoof, or at least a po-faced homage to Don’t Look Now, but then the film takes a step back.
It should be noted that the (married) filmmaking duo of Springer Berman and Pulcini previously brought us the starkly original, hilarious and touching American Splendor (2003), as well as the Emmy-winning TV movie Cinema Verite (2011). However, not all their films have been rapturously received, while Things Heard & Seen strikes an uneasy balance between marital drama and classic ghost story. It’s more intriguing than enthralling.
James Norton plays an art historian with a particular passion for the paintings of Thomas Cole. When he secures a professorial position at a college upstate, Catherine agrees to sacrifice her own career for the domestic status quo. But George is a snob, as well as an egotist and philanderer, and Catherine feels abandoned. She wants to fit in with her new surroundings, as well as her neighbours, regardless of their social standing. As she stresses to her vainglorious husband, “I need to feel I’m in this community, not just your community.”
The supporting cast adds some ballast to the proceedings, with strong turns from F. Murray Abraham as George’s avuncular department head, and in particular from Rhea Seehorn as Justine, the smart, wry local that Catherine takes into her confidence. However, James Norton’s George is a one-dimensional creation, with little light and shade, while Catherine’s bulimia seems merely a red herring. Things Heard & Seen is not without its pleasures, but it is neither scary nor emotionally wrenching. One can but imagine what Nicolas Roeg, or Joel and Ethan Coen, would have brought to the same material.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Amanda Seyfried, James Norton, Natalia Dyer, Alex Neustaedter, Rhea Seehorn, Michael O’Keefe, Karen Allen, Jack Gore, F. Murray Abraham, James Urbaniak, Ana Sophia Heger, Kristin Griffith, Cotter Smith, Dan Dailey, Maureen Young, Peter Grosz, Peter Von Berg, Lewis Payton Jr.
Dir Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, Pro Stefanie Azpiazu, Anthony Bregman, Julie Cohen and Peter Cron, Screenplay Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, from Elizabeth Brundage’s novel All Things Cease to Appear Ph Larry Smith, Pro Des Lester Cohen, Ed Louise Ford, Music Peter Raeburn, Costumes April Napier.
Likely Story/Second Wind Productions-Netflix.
120 mins. USA. 2021. Rel: 29 April 2021. Available on Netflix. Cert. 15.
