Talk To Me

First, if you think you might want to see this movie, I highly recommend going in knowing as little as possible. I’m of course not going to spoil anything. But this movie is emphatically not high-concept, and so talking about it at all requires describing more than usual. The experience of being almost completely uninformed was quite visceral. I’m sure it still “works” once you know where it’s going, but figured it was worth mentioning here.

Talk To Me begins the way many recent horror movies have: with a cold open. We see some unexplained, horrific occurrence, before cutting to the credits and joining the main thread of the film, which is seemingly unconnected but we of course know it’s going to tie in somehow. It’s a way for the filmmakers to have their cake and eat it, too: they get to show you what it looks like when things go wrong, thus raising the stakes, but not spoil the story you’re about to watch. Sometimes it’s cheap, but it’s often effective, hence its pervasiveness.

Our protagonist is Mia (Sophie Wilde), a high schooler who is grieving the loss of her mother (Alexandria Steffensen) two years ago today. Along with her best friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen) and Jade’s younger brother Riley (Joe Bird), they go to a party where they’re introduced to a “game” involving conjuring spirits. Except, being a horror movie, this one’s for real. By uttering a certain phase, you invite the spirit into your body, and they take over while you’re a “passenger” watching it happen. This often causes some pretty weird or embarrassing occurrences, leading them to take it lightly and treat it as a joke. But it stops being funny when Riley starts speaking with the voice of Mia’s mom, and becomes straight horrifying when he bashes he face repeatedly on the table in front of him. At which point we pivot to Mia trying to figure out what’s going on with this spirit world, why did that happen, what’s the real story of her mom’s death, and how can she stop seeing all the spirits that now surround her?

One of the great things this film does is just hurl you in. We don’t learn where the statue they use to summon the spirits comes from. Nor do we really know what we’re seeing when it starts, or how real it is. There have been some glimpses of TikToks which depict what’s going on, but we don’t really have context for what we’re seeing. We learn the rules when Mia learns the rules, although if you’re paying close attention you can discern where at least a few originate.

The benefit of not trying to explain how it all works too carefully is that we can make some small logical leaps to patch things together. For example, Mia’s seeing spirits because Riley’s maiming meant they never closed the channel, she took the hand, and she’s the most emotionally vulnerable due to her grief. Even Riley’s injury has some explanation, albeit a weak one. And the mystery of her mom’s death, which oscillates between settled and curious, never quite resolves.

Instead, we focus on her guilt and grief and terror as she’s trying to figure out how to make things right. And her confusion around what in the world happened to her mom. Her relationship with her dad Max (Marcus Johnson) is strained, and he’s the one who found her mom’s body, so it’s not a stretch that he may be hiding things from Mia under the guise of protecting her.

But here’s where we start to hit some clunkiness. The movie tries to have some emotional beats involving Mia. Her relationship with her father of course, but also that her best friend is dating her “ex” (they held hands once) on whom she still has a crush. But none of them really manage to land when they come up, although they do make sense in retrospect. Even all the stuff with her mom evokes more of a “Holy shit” reaction than more nuanced or personal feelings. It keeps going back there, though, so I’ll admit it’s possible there’s a deeper purpose which went over my head.

There are a few comments on modern culture. The constant presence of smartphones and the lack of connection they cause even when people are in close proximity is a heavy focus at first, although never explicitly brought up. It comes back in the way filming the game causes divisions between friends, and how it spreads the darkness within around the community. And there’s a literalization of empathy at its core, which is something the internet is said to remove from people. After all, they’re just text on a screen, right? Which ties in nicely with the maimed kangaroo Mia and Riley encounter on the road (did I mention this is an Australian production?), which Mia can’t bring herself to mercy kill. This contrasts and helps explain the fascination with the hand: it’s a literal connection in a world lacking them.

Again, though, while it’s there in a piecemeal sort of way, you never really feel it. On the one hand, it’s good that the filmmakers didn’t hold your hand. On the other, you can’t leave it entirely up to the audience to piece together, or even if it clicks it will lack that emotional punch, as it did here.

These directors are quite good, though. The party scene is full of characters who feel like real teenagers. They’re brash, they razz each other, they’re hostile to those they don’t like, and they take nothing seriously. Hayley (Zoe Terakes) is absolutely the standout, an incredibly recognizable and caustic personality realized perfectly from attitude to speech to demeanor to reaction to aesthetic. All the performances are quite good, including from the main cast, but her’s stands out to me most of all.

Well, that’s not quite true. The other standout is Jade’s mom Sue, played by Miranda Otto. She is an absolute force throughout. Some of that is writing, of course. She sees right through every lie Jade and Mia tell her, even if she can’t get them to tell her the truth. Be it Jade sneaking out to that party, or knowing that Mia had something to do with Riley’s state, nothing gets by her. And Otto carries it off so well. She’s a single mother, and she very convincingly conveys how she’s just so done with the games. Her anger at Riley’s injuries is palpable while not being over the top, as are some later scenes when her humanity is instead the focus.

Ultimately, Talk to Me is a creepy, aggressive, and affecting horror film that’s a bit messier than I might want but still manages to pull itself off quite well. It follows through on what it promises and has one of the better endings I’ve seen in a horror film in quite some time. In hindsight, it’s the only way it ever could have ended, but even as you see it approaching and start to anticipate it, you’re worried the movie will swerve and chicken out like so many do. But they stick with it, and thus have crafted a very memorable experience for all who are fortunate enough to see this movie.