Written and directed by sibling duo Evangelos and George Giovanis, Bereave is a difficult film to pin down. It seems like the brothers were aiming to make a gravely serious drama about an aging man coming to grips with his mortality and the relationships he shares with various family members but the result is a mish-mash of strange characters and their unbelievable behaviour.
Malcolm McDowell stars as Garvey, an affluent New Yorker who is seemingly on the brink of suicide. His wife Evelyn (Jane Seymour) is concerned about his depression and frustrated by his insistence on acting out in weird ways, like calling friends he knows have been dead for years.
Garvey’s brother Victor (Keith Carradine) is also concerned. He stops by early in the film for reasons that never seem clear but it does lead to scene that ends with Garvey trying to share his grief with Victor by blowing it into his mouth. This might have been really moving on the page but on screen it really doesn’t work, coming off more funny than anything else and the actors play it with conviction and intensity which just adds to the laughable nature of it.
Victor decides he doesn’t want to be bothered today and seems to think messing up his hair will give off that message. He meanders around town, eventually winding up at what remains of his childhood home. What purpose Victor serves the film is anyone’s guess as his story ultimately feels completely detached from everything else that’s going on. Perhaps we’re supposed to see his weird, erratic behaviour as his way of dealing with his brother’s issues but it just comes across as a series of random sidebars.
Similarly, we meet Garvey’s grown children Penelope (Vinessa Shaw) and Steve (Mike Starr) and they contribute very little, particularly Steve. He seems to exist as a sounding post for Evelyn later in the film but does little else other than treat his girlfriend like dirt. Penelope is written as a one-dimensional moan who lectures her young daughter at every opportunity, particularly when it comes to Garvey, who the little girl seems to adore. Again, it’s never clear why any of this is going on or why these people are acting so weird.
That’s the biggest issue with Bereave: none of these people feel like actual human beings making rational choices. That kind of heightened reality works in some settings but the film takes itself so seriously and seems to be going for some level of insight that the sheer ridiculousness of everything going on is jarring. Almost every performance, especially Seymour’s, is pitched at a level of complete hysteria throughout. The actors are committed, there’s no doubt there, but the overwrought performances just add to the baffling nature of the film.
Then there are the exceedingly strange turns he plot takes in the third act. Garvey skips out on his wife and eventually spends the day with a beautiful young woman he meets in the park, who accepts a job sitting next to Garvey’s grave plot for eight hours a day. Meanwhile Evelyn is found sleepwalking on the wrong side of town and ends up being targeted by a couple of deadbeat crims who plan to rob her. The introduction of these characters so late on only serves to further muddy the plot and pave the way for a dramatic altercation and eventually a happy ending that both feel entirely forced.
The decisions the Giovanis brothers make throughout the script are inexplicable and it often feels like this is a first draft that needs to be tightened up. There are scenes that do literally nothing for the film; you assume the characters introduced or something that’s been said will come back later, like the baker Evelyn has a coffee with or the casually racist bank clerk, but they never do.
It’s this sloppy and perplexing narrative that makes Bereave hard to recommend. It seems to be trying to present serious themes around mortality, depression, grief and family but loses it all amongst its madcap plotting. However, despite all of that, it’s a strangely engrossing watch. Maybe it’s because it’s impossible to predict what’s going to happen next or just the unintentional humour of it all, who knows. Either way this random little film is sure to appeal to those who enjoy their films so bad they’re good.
EIFF 2015 — count: 22
Festivals — count: 132
