The Eggers Brothers Unpack the Politics of Horror Film The Front Room

There’s a nauseating thread of racial, political and class tension running through A24’s theatrical horror film The front roomalongside elements of Cronenbergian body horror and religious fantasy. It’s a complex and challenging project for twin brothers Sam and Max Eggers, who worked on The Witch And The lighthouserespectively, under the direction of their brother Robert Eggers.

Sam and Max Eggers adapted the film from a short story of the same name by The woman in black author Susan Hill, excerpt from the anthology The travel bag —but as they told Polygon in an interview coinciding with the film’s release, they’ve radically changed the dynamics of this story. The themes their changes bring to the surface are felt strongly throughout the film, but the Eggers brothers are very careful when talking about them.

The thing they seem most comfortable talking about is why they cast Brandy Norwood as their lead character, Belinda, a heavily pregnant anthropology professor who suffers from strange visions as she tries to play polite host to her creepy, predatory mother-in-law Solange (Kathryn Hunter).

“We cast Kathryn first, and we were looking for our Cinderella,” Sam Eggers told Polygon. “And Brandy, of course, East Cinderella. It was amazing that she read it and got it and identified with it. I think she wanted to do something different, and for that, she deserves all the praise. But we had an antagonistic stepmother, so we had to find a Cinderella. That was the inspiration.

As The front room Belinda and her husband, Norman (Andrew Burnap), are having money problems. Belinda doesn’t have a permanent position, and her boss is giving all her classes to other teachers, while avoiding her and refusing to admit that he’s doing either of these things. Is it because she’s black? Because she’s heavily pregnant? Something else? It’s unclear, because he won’t make his decisions clear.

This kind of deliberate ambiguity extends throughout the film’s main plot, leaving Belinda at sea in her career and at home. She and Norman are forced to take in her decrepit and fragile mother, Solange, a devout Christian who immediately begins replacing Belinda’s collection of anthropological goddess icons with crosses, among other invasive measures. Her beliefs manifest themselves in strange ways throughout the film. As Belinda deals with Solange’s racist microaggressions (and in one scene, macroaggressions) and her escalating demands and deceptions, Belinda begins to have her own strange experiences, all while trying to navigate the truth: How much of this is real? How much is Solange lying about everything? Polygon spoke to the Eggers brothers about what they had planned for all of this.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

What do you say about religion in this film? Nowadays, many films explore the evil aspects of the supernatural, around exorcism and demons, but it is much rarer to see God presented as an active presence. How did you arrive at this dynamic?

Max Eggers: In the story, the Irwins, the central couple, are faithful, and Solange is irreligious. So, from the beginning, it was… OK, how do we handle this and how do we make it personal? What we decided to do was bring it to America, update the period to today, and then reverse that dynamic.

Then when you talk about religion, you have these millennials – or Gen X, someone in that kind of arena – against this antagonist, which is, say, the baby boomer generation. We’re not religious ourselves, so we can access it a little bit more authentically through Belinda’s perspective. But it’s not just about religion, it’s also about generational divides and how different generations seek to talk about religion and navigate it.

It seemed natural to us that Belinda is an anthropologist who is interested in myth. She knows, through that prism, what a mother has been for thousands of years and what happened to the Mother Goddess, so to speak. And then there is the natural antagonist, this faithful, Solange, who herself knows what is true, which is Christ. This spoke to us, by reversing things, of a kind of common and relatable generational divide.

Sam Eggers: Specifically, Solange is a charismatic evangelical, so she believes in the power of the Holy Spirit, the power of tongues, and the laying on of hands. And I think that’s real for this person in today’s world. They believe they can heal. They believe they can speak the word of God through tongues. And it’s an interesting dynamic – as Solange gets worse, Belinda’s world starts to get stranger and stranger. Solange’s extreme belief has this effect on Belinda, so she starts to not understand – she confuses what’s real and what’s not, because of the strength of her beliefs.

There is a version of this film that deals with this conflict of beliefs and this clash of generations, but there are no supernatural events or miracles. Why was it important for you to integrate this supernatural aspect?

Max: I think you hit the nail on the head with these questions about the ambiguity of belief. It was something that we were very interested in. We cared for our grandfather as he was declining. And when you’re faced with death, and the fact that in this country, at least, there’s very little support for that, it becomes a kind of surreal world. Add to that what it’s like to be a mother-to-be – that can be very surreal in itself.

For us, it all started with this idea of ​​ambiguity. If you have a person who is really honest and very devout in their beliefs, and who thinks they have the power of the Holy Spirit, it seems very real. When people speak in tongues, they go into almost possessed trances. It’s very effective and convincing. So when you’re dealing with a person who’s dying, and you’re dealing with a pregnancy, let’s say – I don’t know. Maybe it’s real!

It’s an interesting, ambiguous soup. It really excited us creatively. Once we looked at things like the surrealist art movement and where we could represent it visually, it again sparked a really exciting creative response.

Sat : I don’t know if you’ve ever had to take care of a family member (who was dying). Our grandfather was mentally healthy, but physically he was declining. So he was doing these things, and we didn’t know if we were seeing something that was being done on purpose. For example, there was one time when we came downstairs and there was blood on the wall, and we thought, How did this happen? It was so surreal.

So I think caring for someone in that surreal aspect – and obviously trying to be true to the short story, where there are overt horror elements – created Belinda’s visions and the sense of the supernatural (in the film).

The idea of ​​a baby boomer confronting younger people on issues like religion, body control, self-determination, racism, and having to bear the burden of their elders, while at the same time being told that it is our duty to respect them, to revere them, and to obey them, all of these seem to be very current and very political issues. Do you consider this film to be a political film?

Max: Today, identity has become very controversial, in terms of how we treat each other. There are certainly relevant contemporary examples of people like Belinda and Solange that you can find in politics and in culture. When we updated the film, when we moved it to this country, when we made Belinda the woman that she is, politics were definitely on our minds. I think you can’t escape it, unfortunately. As much as the film is funny, I hope these are real and serious issues, and we wanted to address them. I think it’s important to bring them to the forefront and have that reflection reflect us.

Was there anything specific you wanted to say about these issues, or express on behalf of people like Belinda?

Max: I can’t speak for people like Belinda. We’re not trying to claim a point of view that we don’t have or haven’t earned. I think we could look to our Supreme Court as an example, to see a very common and similar story. Let me put it this way.

In the story, we deal with a lot of modern myths and beliefs. And I think we were careful to say in the film that throughout the history of the Goddess, her symbols have been used as objects of possession. I think that’s maybe the clearest way to put it.

As you pointed out, you changed a lot from the original story, from the setting to the ending. What initially captivated you about the story? What made it interesting?

Sat : (Max) read it first, but I think it was the aspect of… we took care of our grandfather as he was declining, and in the story, Solange comes (to live with the Irwins) and she’s declining. So I think that aspect immediately resonated with us, because it was practically happening as we were reading it. And we’re big fans of Susan Hill, of course. The woman in black? An incredible story. I think all the other stories in this book, The travel bagare incredible. So I think those two things drew us to the story.