incubation

the festivals of movie theater are an excellent excuse to put films on the radar that you couldn’t count on at first. And although the films that appear on the list of winners usually have some kind of commercial trajectory, there are others that are simply anecdotes or works to be rescued even more vigorously, if possible. Today’s case, by the synopsis, inevitably caught my attention and the opinions that sundance They couldn’t put it any better, so it’s time to take a look at Hatching.

Tinja is a 12-year-old girl focused on artistic gymnastics to please her demanding mother, who is determined to show on the internet that she leads a dream life with her family. The fragile tranquility of the home is threatened when Tinja finds a mysterious egg that she takes care of and keeps warm until it hatches, but what emerges from the egg is beyond imagination.

The first thing that catches your eye as soon as you start the headband is that it seems that Tinja’s family is the perfect family in a perfect house, which gives the impression that everything is taken from an IKEA catalogue, where all family members are affectionate, support each other and in general relations are good , an image that seems too perfect to be true and, as is often the case in such cases, is a simple facade. This with great simplicity and at the same time elegance is evident in the first scene, where the slightest disturbance of that homely harmony is quickly eliminated, perhaps too abruptly, revealing the cracks of the crystal palace. And given that the more you tap those cracks with your finger and once you fix them there’s no turning back, you see how they’re spreading throughout the family niche: marital dissatisfaction, mother’s frustrations in the form of broken dreams that the children must now comply with, the overprotective behavior to an unhealthy level on the part of the mother towards Tinja, the jealousy of the young children or the desire to want to show a false life on the internet are some of the problems that are very present . in that house with a calm so measured it borders on disturbing, so much so that I could remember Caninejust under the apparent Nordic perfection and with different features that are not paid attention to until digging under the surface.

The egg’s arrival in that house only makes these behaviors more noticeable, literally and metaphorically, because with the entry of this new “entity” into a house so lit up with pastels and fake smiles, Tinja will see how her side comes to the fore. darker, something that, on the other hand, is inevitable, because it is a girl in full growth that, on the one hand, looks for herself, looks for her own way to break with the limits imposed by the family and that, in the end, all the frustrations and problems that befall it must break down somewhere, something that with the new creature (a creature whose design is in part captivating and chilling and whose practical effects are appreciated) will find the perfect catalyst. And without revealing too much about the creature that hatches from the egg or the fascinating relationship she establishes with Tinja, it’s fascinating to see how the young protagonist’s darkest desires make their way through generous doses of body horrorputting in check the tranquility of all its surroundings and creating a magnificent suspense in which the audience wonders what the next move will be that will mean a leap to the jugular.

Bearing in mind that the mother and daughter are the characters that occupy the most minutes in the headbandthose who maintain the most strained relationship and at the end of filming the ones with the most development, it was to be expected that the acting work would be the most grateful for both actresses. Siri Solalinna how Tinja is quite a find, all the more so for her debut on camera, with a balance of anger, complacency and disbelief throughout. movie which makes her performance feel very natural, not to mention the physical challenges that come her way. And in contrast is Sophia Heikkila like her mother, a father that the more you get to know her, the more hateful she gets for her way of treating people, but being totally effective in her mission.

However, there are a few points to note that are a little less positive. The first of these is the tone, which in some circumstances seems extremely strange due to the reactions of some characters. And this is directly related to the second point, and I don’t know if it’s more related to the Nordic character, the way of seeing life or without end etc., but in general the characters’ reactions to the intrusion of a fantastic or horror element are at least calm, creating a rarefied atmosphere that blends in very well with everything the movieresulting in something bizarre with every letter in the word.