This is easily the best film I’ve seen about the insidiousness of family bloggers/influencers. And it highlights the issue pretty seamlessly, not really hitting you over the head with that framing, but instead quietly using it to get down to the root problems – the toxic/narcissistic parent, maintaining image, the pressure for perfection, and cycles of emotional abuse and manipulation. The film explores all of this through a dark fairy tale motif that comes crashing (“hatching” if you will) its way into the perfectly pure, curated cream world the mother has created. The story follows the 12 year old daughter of the family, Tinja, and it is heartbreaking seeing her continuous struggle to please and perform for a parent that seems incapable of truly caring about her. The film successfully creates a sense of deep, and perhaps more personal, creeping dread, but there is also just some great gruesome creature design here as well. The layers run deep on this one and I’m sure I will be ruminating on it for a while!

Hooptober Review 8/31
My Hooptober 12 Playlist