Reunion

Genre cinema has always been one of our favourite genres because it allows young directors to find an international audience and above all to tackle important subjects such as here in Reunion the family, pregnancy. With its intimate approach, the film features a young separated and pregnant mother who returns to her family home and finds herself confronted by her mother while her very tired father seems close to death. After Wellness (2008), Free in Deed (2015), Jake Mahaffy returns to an intimate and particularly well-performed genre cinema. We thus find in the role of the heroine's mother, the actress Julia Ormond.

The great strength of Reunion comes in part from its script and its dress conctruction in which the past and the present mix and let us perceive a tragic destiny within a so-called normal family. The omnipresent death in this house is thus opposed to this young pregnant mother.

In spite of its very limited means, making that the main part of the action takes place in a family house, and an important lack of action and a very slow rhythm which can destabilize some spectators, Reunion succeeds in creating a real bewitching atmosphere. By using with parsimony and intelligence the flashbacks by staging the heroine's half sister whose presence remains like a ghost in the corridors of this house, Reunion stands out as an original and strong cinematic experience.

The important work done on the sound aspect of the film means that Reunion, by being a simple independent New-Zealand production, manages to get out of its straitjacket to become an auteur film with a real vision of a director who knows how to play with the nerves of the spectators. You are not ready to forget this vision of urban hell as unusual as it is striking.

Reunion
Written and Directed by Jake Mahaffy
Produced by Nadia Maxwell, Ainsley Gardiner, Georgina Conder, Mike S. Ryan
Starring Julia Ormond, Emma Draper, Cohen Holloway, Ava Keane, Gina Laverty, John Bach
Music by Steven Lord, Tim Oxton
Cinematography: Adam Luxton
Edited by Jonathan Woodford-Robinson
Distributed by Dark Sky Films
Release date: February 5 2021 (United States)
Running time: 95 minutes

Seen on February 5, 2020 (sreener press)

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