Harvest, The (2014)
Starring Michael Shannon, Samantha Morton, Peter Fonda, Charlie Tahan
Directed by John McNaughton
Legendary Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer director John McNaughton returns to the big screen in excellent form with The Harvest, a relatively mild yet utterly captivating thriller that deals with darker happenings buried within the apparent normality of a reputable home.
Teenage actress Natasha Calis stars as Maryann, a young girl who has recently moved with her grandparents to a secluded new home in the wake of her parents’ deaths. While investigating the local area, Maryann comes across the home of the bedridden young Andy (Tahan) and his parents, Katherine (Morton) and Richard (Shannon). Her initial attempts to befriend Andy are met with stern resistance by his mother, who explains that Andy is very, very sick and cannot afford to expend his energy with excessive play sessions – in fact, he may not have long left on this world, and Katherine is concerned that allowing too close a bond to form between the two would simply be unfair in terms of its emotional impact on Maryann when the inevitable end arrives.
Of course such a bond is quickly formed and being young, tenacious, and a more than welcome new best friend in Andy’s view sees Maryann continue to visit the sick boy in secret, much to the increasing chagrin of his domineering mother. There’s a sense that something in the household is off, however, and a jaunt into the basement while hiding from Andy’s mother sees Maryann uncover a shocking truth that puts both her and Andy in immediate danger.
All right, so the actual twist in The Harvest isn’t particularly difficult to see coming (nor is the second, once the first arrives), and there is little inventiveness in McNaughton’s choice of visual presentation – keeping the entire affair clean and grounded with a Lifetime-esque sheen – but the drama that unfolds throughout is impeccably rendered by its cast. The two young leads are fabulous in their respective turns, harnessing that childlike curiosity that leads straight towards an adult danger zone. Speaking of the adults, everyone here is playing their A-game – Samantha Morton is at once cold, calculated, stern and yet utterly unhinged. When the wheels come off, her performance is staggeringly terrifying. Michael Shannon plays a perfect polar opposite – the downtrodden husband with a steely stare that betrays a brooding regret and despondence rather than the sheer malevolence of his counterpart. He’s a sympathetic villain – harangued into action while battling an internal moral and emotional conflict regarding what is going on under his roof – and actually comes to feel like the true victim in the tale once the credits roll. Both actors are powerhouses in The Harvest, so much so that it’s very, very difficult to take your eyes off the screen.
There’s little in the way of violence or true horror-centric shocks here. Most of the fear comes from the threat of Morton’s unpredictable Katherine, driven home in perhaps the sole scene of brutality that is made all the more effective by the comparative lack of such behaviour throughout the rest of the film. The story may initially feel twee, but it unfolds with measured grace as things gradually slip into much darker territory. It’s perhaps difficult to accept the swiftness with which Maryann’s grandparents dismiss her claims, but it sets the scene for some effective tension as she realises that she is indeed Andy’s only hope.
Don’t go into this expecting a jump-out-of-your-seat shocker or anything swinging around violence and brutality with abandon. What you get is a grounded tale of very human horror, grief, loss and bravery brought to life by a cast that simply couldn’t have done it any better.
4 out of 5
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