Womb

Details

Womb
Directed by Benedek Fliegauf
Olive Films
Opens March 30, Cinema Village

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More About

• Eva Green
• Eva Green
• Matt Smith
• Parenting
• Parenting

Otherwise known as "That Crazy Cloning Incest Movie," Hungarian indie Benedek Fliegauf's attention-getter Womb begins with a childhood idyll on the North Sea, establishing a destined romance Victorian-style, which finally blooms years later when the girl, Rebecca, returns in the svelte, ominous adult form of Eva Green, to the rather apish local boy-now-man, Thomas (Matt Smith). Quickly, though, Thomas is run over by a van, and our grieving heroine, rather than do without, decides to impregnate herself with the guy's clone. It's a profound pickle of a story concept, queasily splicing up our ideas of parenthood and family roles into pure nightmare salad, and Green is ingeniously cast: At some point in the years of subsequent spooky child-rearing, you realize that her character, with those huge, unblinking eyes, is totally nuts. Unfortunately, Fliegauf is way too besotted with his barren beach locations, where a lot of silent brooding occurs. The glacial pace is only quickened for seconds at a time with evocative ideas (a beach burial of a still-moving toy dinosaur) and hints of satire (what if you cloned your life's love and got a brat?). That Green doesn't age in the interim is small potatoes; I just wanted her to speak up.