Rosemary’s Baby is one of the finest horror films of all time, so when a modern retelling of the iconic film is on the release calendar, it’s hard not to doubt the film’s eventual quality.
With this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, Hulu and A24 eased my doubt with their modern retelling of Rosemary’s Baby – False Positive. It’s a film that puts to rest the slow burn subtleties of its predecessor to provide a blunt-force trauma of a movie while offering up a thrilling screenplay and performances.
False Positive tells the story of Lucy (Broad City‘s Ilana Glazer), a woman longing for a child. She struggles with her fertility until her doctor husband (Justin Theroux) introduces her to a renowned fertility doctor, Dr. John Hundle (Pierce Brosnan), who had been his mentor and has a treatment that can assist Lucy with having a child. With the help of his office, Lucy is soon impregnated, and that’s when things get curiously suspicious.
While the film does have the typical tropes seen in previous films, director John Lee and Ilana Glazer’s script does an exceptional job of focusing on Lucy’s psychological trauma throughout the film. As Lucy’s concerns develop into full-blown fear, she becomes isolated from the world around her, and cinephiles are fully engulfed in that trauma which effectively aids in understanding Lucy.
False Positive also dives into the motives of the men who control Lucy’s life. Entirely bypassing understanding what she’s going through, the men in her life, including her arrogant fertility doctor, question her life choices, including her work/life balance, and mansplain extensively even going as far as to tell Lucy to smile. In turn, this film speaks volumes as a commentary on a male tendency to control a woman’s choices in life and about her body.
What makes these themes work throughout the film is the downright spectacular performance by Ilana Glazer. Glazer, best known for her comedy thus far, has a career-best turn in the film. Glazer’s take is haunting and menacing and uses her comedic background best during the satirical moments within the movie where everyone is in on the joke.
Aiding Glazer’s performance is the cinematography of False Positive. Fans of Ari Aster’s Midsommar will find the cinematography familiar as Pawel Pogorzelski shoots the film. Like his work in Midsommar, his work aids the layers of anxiety and tension John Lee is looking to create.
The supporting players do a fine job in increasing Lucy’s fear. Brosnan perfectly embodies the arrogant doctor with a godlike complex, to the point where Lucy is called out for taking a magazine where Hundle graces the cover. Justin Theroux is also ideally cast, making Lucy’s husband, Adrian, just loving and supporting enough to have you questioning if he has an ulterior motive.
As previously mentioned, there are layers of satire sprinkled throughout the film, and that’s where I have issues. Lee and the company could have done a more effective job differentiating between the film’s tones. There are moments throughout where there is utter confusion about whether or not cinephiles should take it seriously or be in on the film’s satire.
The addition of a midwife also falls flat in terms of the general arc of the film. Moments with her move away from the effectiveness and questions posed from the first half of the film. Who can Lucy trust? Is she in control or just paranoid?
Ultimately, False Positive may not entirely stick the landing, but it does offer an array of themes and moments that will merit its existence.
