Directed by Michelle Bossy and written by leading actress Louisa Erlich, when Theodora’s boyfriend Luca is set to be released from the institution where they are both admitted, she escapes with him and tries to re-traumatize him, so he remains under her control. They end up at his childhood home where a knock on the door sends them spiralling into a confusing night of games and manipulation rooted in lies, insecurity, and fear. Also starring: Julio Lourido, Ruffin Prentiss, Baize Buzan and Tom Lipinski.
Trying to create a feature that is so driven by discomfort is not an easy thing to achieve and Nobody’s Home struggles to make it work. Part of that is it sets out on the wrong foot, it creates this highly sentimental, romantic style atmosphere with an overwhelming score before moving into thriller territory and the transition is incredibly strange. It gives a muddled first impression, one that it never quite recovers from. It feels as though it needed to pick a more defined lane to set things down the right road.
Michelle Bossy and Louisa Erlich are instilling Nobody’s Home with a decent amount of darkness but it’s missing a sharpness. It’s actually doing a better job of capturing the manic depressive nature to these characters. Something that’s of mixed success as when we already know their complicated background, it’s not adding a great deal to the mystery or thrill. Instead, it’s preventing the film from finding a flow to its story.
Although Boddy and Erlich do manage to capture a great deal of tension, especially with the help of the performances from the core cast. Erlich herself goes all in on Theodora, she’s not a woman to be taken lightly and you should not mince words around her. She’s capable of absolutely anything and keeps a good sense of unpredictability. Whereas Julio Lourido’s Luca is incredibly sensitive and extremely broken, which nicely adds that draw of wanting to protect him. Then Ruffin Prentiss and Baize Buzan provide the room to make things uncomfortable, totally unaware of what they’re getting themselves into, playing with fire without knowing it.
There’s a good intensity between the four of them, which with a few tweaks could have been interesting. It had the potential to go down a more psychologically dark road like Funny Games, but the pieces weren’t in place for that sort of complexity and sadism. Perhaps that’s part of the problem, it’s teasing that kind of sinister edge but not committing to it, keeping within a fairly safe realm rather than pushing boundaries. It tends to lean more towards the sexual than the violent or aggressive, which is less effective.
Nobody’s Home is undoubtedly tense but once it has that in the bag, doesn’t quite know where to go. The story struggles to strike a definitive note, leaving you unsure what to make of it or what it wants to achieve. Meaning it can’t build upon itself and find a smooth flow to its progression, as well as being topped by some distracting music choices. You can see the basic idea of what the filmmakers were going for, but it’s ultimately intense in an unsatisfying way.
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