Hatching Review

PLOT: After putting a wounded bird out of its misery, a young girl hatches the bird’s egg in her own bed… and things get really weird from there.

REVIEW: Many of us probably know someone who uses social media to present their lives as being much more idyllic than we have seen it to be in reality. That’s certainly what Sophia Heikkilä’s character does in the Finnish horror film Hatching. She runs a blog called Lovely Everyday Life, where posts, videos, and live-streams offer glimpses into the picture perfect life she has with her husband and two young children. But it’s all a facade – and the family member who has to struggle the most to live up to this fiction “Mother” is sending out into the world is her twelve-year-old daughter Tinja (Siiri Solalinna).

Mother has it in her mind that Tinja needs to be an impressive gymnast, and Tinja tries desperately to reach the skill level her mom wants her to be at. She just can’t. It doesn’t help that mother puts more psychological burden on her by openly having an affair with handyman Tero (Reino Nordin), an affair her milquetoast, cuckold husband is aware of. He doesn’t even object when Mother decides to take Tinja to Tero’s with her for a while, where Tinja finds that Mother helps take care of Tero’s infant daughter. Tinja is so tormented by all of this, it’s no surprise she’s able to somehow bring a monstrous creature into existence. A creature that is willing to kill anything that causes trouble for Tinja.

Directed by Hanna Bergholm from a screenplay by Ilja Rautsi, Hatching is a fascinating blend of social media satire, engaging psychological drama, and bizarre horror elements. The film gets its title from the fact that Tinja hatches an egg she retrieves from the nest of a bird – a bird that was wounded by her mother – after she kills the bird to put it out of its misery. She takes that egg and places it on her bed, under her teddy bear. And later inside her teddy bear. But this is no ordinary egg. It grows to a massive size before hatching… and the giant bird-creature that emerges was designed by Gustav Hoegen, who previously did animatronic work on Star Wars and Jurassic World movies. Hatching would have been doing just fine if it had kept the creature in that form for the entire movie, but it isn’t finished being weird. The creature, which Tinja names Alli, gradually evolves to take on a human form. And it kills for the person that hatched it.

Hatching may be too weird for some viewers at first, I thought it would be too weird for me for a while, but if you stick with it you’ll be rewarded with a good, well-made film that really makes you care about the Tinja character. The viewer’s heart breaks for this kid again and again throughout the movie. Child actress Solalinna turns in such a strong performance as Tinja, it’s surprising to see that this is her first – and so far, only – screen acting role. She could build quite an interesting career if she decides to stick with acting. Heikkilä is also great as Mother, but she is not a character we come to like or care about. She is detestable from beginning to end.

It’s also impressive that Hatching happens to be the feature debut of Bergholm, who proves to be a filmmaker worth keeping an eye on. She handled the dramatic, satirical, and horrific moments of the story all equally well. With the help of production designer Päivi Kettunen, Bergholm also managed to capture a unique look for the film, dropping Tinja into a world put together to match Mother’s sickening view of floral-print-covered perfection.

I’m a big fan of coming-of-age horror films like Let the Right One In, Ginger Snaps, and Teeth, and Hatching fits in right alongside those 21st century genre classics. If you have enjoyed any of the movies on that list, I highly recommend seeking this one out.

IFC Midnight is giving Hatching a theatrical release on April 29th, with a VOD release to follow on May 17th.

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GREAT

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