Talk to Me is a mean movie.
The feature debut from Danny and Michael Phillippou, Talk to Me follows Mia (Sophie Wilde), a teenage dealing with the loss of her mother, as she encounters the supernatural power of a magic embalmed hand (stay with me here) and her life swiftly spirals even further out of control. This horror has been getting a whole lot of buzz, and I’ve been looking forward to it for months now; something sincerely unsettling, reviews promised, and who doesn’t love a little cinematic unsettling?
Well, beyond that, I suppose it’s only fair to talk about a couple of the performances here, which I really think are the high point of this all-round excellent slice of horror faire. Wilde as Mia is genuinely exceptional, papering over a few gaps in the movie’s lore with her sheer intensity and unbridled teenage emotion. The way she communicates how unstable Mia is without having to go into extremes or irritating teenage angst tropes really is just such an impressive display of her skill, and her supporting cast aren’t slouches either. Miranda Otto as Mia’s best friend’s mother is predictably great, and Joe Bird as Riley is an absolute standout in his small moments and the bigger scare sequences.
The Philipous really do a great job with the direction here, especially given that this is a debut. From the one-take opening shot that opens the movie to the use of dark and light in Mia’s appearances with her father, there’s an incredible polish to Talk to Me, a sense of confidence in using cinematic language to deepen our understanding of the story and the characters in it.
I particularly love the sound design, that murky, bubbling water noise showing up when the supernatural makes an appearance; it creates a really unique feel for these particular spirits and how they appear, even though they’re relatively standard in terms of design. I think the injury effects are commendable, too, because this is one of the first times in a long time that movie injuries actually made me squirm. From top to bottom, Talk to Me feels like a movie designed to create this deep-seated unease, and it effectively permeates the story till it’s grim climax.
And a grim climax it is. Talk to Me is a mean movie, a movie about the selfishness that comes with guilt and grief, and a movie that ultimately punishes Mia in the worst way possible. But it feels really right – and really rewarding – for where the film has taken us this far, from the darkness in Mia’s character to the way the direction weaves this discomforting web over the course of the movie’s run. Building all of this up just to tear it down really makes this ending stick, and the meanness, I would argue, is probably one of the reasons it will stick in people’s minds even more.
It’s for sure not a film that tries to go anywhere particularly cheerful, and I think that’s worth keeping in mind if you do watch Talk to Me but the harshness of the ending fits really well with the tone that’s been built into the movie. With excellent performances, great production design, and a genuinely disturbing tone, Talk to Me has earned it’s hype – even if it got a little mean in the process.
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By Lou MacGregor
(header image via Bloody Disgusting)
No But Listen 