Resurrection is an unsettling film about deeply unsettling people anchored by three great performances.

The movie stars Hall as strong, forthright doctor living alone with her seventeen year old daughter. But she has a troubled past that returns to her in the form of Tim Roth, a man who must have seen the movie Gaslight and thought it was aspirational. Hall’s character begins to unravel as she tries to unravel this man from her life.

Rebecca Hall would have carried the movie if Tim Roth’s confident, slinky performance wasn’t pretending to hold up its end too. Grace Kaufman will likely get left out of most conversations though but she puts in an equally solid performance as a daughter trying to navigate deeply unsettling waters.

At first, it’s easy to side with Hall who seems like a strong, capable, no bullshit kind of lady. But when Roth’s character shows up, she slips deeper into deeper into anxiety and will occasionally performs actions that made me angry and frustrated at her for not being stronger. But the internal logic was sound… this is the psychological mess she has to navigate. And she has a knock-it-out-of-the-park monolog near the halfway point that was utterly mesmerizing.

Tim Roth just eats this film up as a monster in the body of a human. There’s an early scene where he doesn’t smile so much as show you his teeth… he makes his creepy persona and disheveled look work for him. He creates a genuinely menacing man without actively doing anything menacing. A master manipulator, a movie monster, and a craftsman.

Kaufman has the less showy role but is giving her all as a daughter who is distressed by a mother she can’t understand. It’s a great balancing act since she still loves her mom but needs to pull away.

The end of the film is a little abstract and can be read multiple ways. It was a little disappointing in that I wanted that one extra scene or shot that would (over) explain what just happened. But it chooses to remain open to interpretation and I guess we just have to live with that.

I really enjoyed the sense of uncertainty, discomfort, frustration, mania, and weirdness of this film. Maybe some people will find it too slow a burn, will want more to happen, and others will find the ending pretty messed up (because it is). But all of it worked for me. Great job to all, but especially Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth (and Grace Kaufman).

Score: 88