There is no single version of romantic love that is 'correct', and each couple in love find their ways to love. You've never going to love everything about a person, and we all overlook flaws in our partner(s) as long as it doesn't tip the balance. But knowing when love isn't enough, or love is too much, might be a key to a healthy relationship.
Filmmaking duo Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli made a big impression with their debut feature, Violation, an oddly intimate rape-revenge thriller. For their second film, the sense of intimacy is retained, but this time it's a love story with some creepy scientific experiments that challenged a couple's idea of what their love is and how it can survive great tragedy.
Diana (Grace Glowicki, Dead Lover) was badly injured in a car accident, that she's can't remember. Her husband Homer (Ben Petrie, Blackberry) is bringing her to a special clinic in the countryside, where she will not only get physical therapy for her leg, but mental therapy for her mind. It's in a beautiful old house, Ben is able to stay with her, the head nurse Farah (Kate Dickie) provides excellent care, and Diana even has a fellow patient in young Josephina (India Brown), who is accompanied by her father Joseph (Jason Isaacs, The Death of Stalin). While not exactly a second honeymoon, it's a chance for Diana and Homer to reconnect after the accident.
But it's not hard to guess that something is amiss. Diana often loses chunks of time; Homer often gets up during their meals and never returns to eat, instead privately conversing with Farah. Farah's helper Delwyn (Julian Richings) needs rhymes to remember how to perform tasks. There's a painting of the same woman in every room and Diana is sure she has seen said woman, who is apparently long dead, running around the property. And while Diana's leg is improving, she still can't remember the accident.
Mancinelli and Sims-Fewer choose the 1970s for the time period, giving the film a hazy filter, evoking films of the era such as Let's Scare Jessica to Death or Picnic at Hanging Rock. It feels like a dream, but of course there's also the uncanny nightmare in Diana's strange visions, her attempts to leave the property, and what seems like a conspiracy to keep her from a terrible truth. The style allows the viewer to be both engaged with the mystery, as Diana is, but also leaves us wanting to stretch out the detecting, wanting to find all the various clues.
The situation is more desperate for Diana, of course, and she takes desperate measures at first to save herself, and then to discover what is really happening. The filmmakers do keep us waiting, and it is worth the wait to find out why they are really here, and what Ben has done to keep his and Diana's love alive. I won't spoil it, but suffice to say that Diana is not thrilled with the discovery. This brings out some of the main ideas being explored in the film: is it possible to love someone too much?
The cast are terrific, and carry this film so well. The characters all feel slightly out of synch, as the story and time is out of synch. But each in a different way, that makes sense as we slowly understand what is happening, how each person has come to be there, and what the power of love has done to inform their choices.
The film opens with Homer taking Diana into the lake, apparently to drown her (with her approval); is that love? What is Diana suddenly became constantly angry and aggressive, or she became obese and needed constant care? What if one person wants to let go, and the other refuses to allow? Who is being selfish, and who is being selfless? If we love someone, can we, and should we, love all of them; likely many of us might find it hard to continue loving our partner if they did grievous harm (thinking outside of abusive relationships), but what if that harm was meant to save us as well? Could we forgive them their trespasses?
That’s a lot of questions for one review, but that’s like any good film that wants to get us both feeling and thinking. The film perhaps stretches out its ending a bit, but there is a gentleness that is well-juxtaposed with cruelty in the climactic scene that will make you question what decision you would take, in Diana’s position. Honey Bunch is an artichoke where each layer is a question that uncovers more questions until we get to the heart of the matter.
Full disclosure: XYZ Films, which owns ScreenAnarchy, is a producing partner on Honey Bunch. This had no bearing on the review.