Equal parts eclectic and macabre, Braid is a tour de force from debuting director Mitzi Peirone.
Though not for the faint of heart, Braid certainly takes advantage of the homoerotic undertones of close female friendship in crafting a heady women-driven horror film that will make you rethink how close you stay to your childhood friends. Leads Imogen Waterhouse and Madeleine Brewer play to their skills wonderfully, but Sarah Hay is standout incredible in her role as Tilda, one of the dynamic crime duo. The nuances of her character, not to mention her vibrant red hair, lend her a certain magnetism that easily steals the stage whenever she is onscreen.
The premise of the film, two drug dealers visiting a psychotic old friend in order to steal her money while on the run from the cops, belies the surrealism of the film. The house in which the movie takes place is a haven from reality, both voiced and fervently believed by the leads, and the movie itself is a definite escape from the mundane. Between drug-fueled hallucinations and dreamy flashbacks, the film never lets you settle easy for long, and the morally dubious characters make it difficult to pick a side. Who can we root for when everyone is a little bit fake, lying to the audience as well as each other? How many secrets are being kept, and to what lengths will these women go to keep them?
The cinematography in this film is gorgeous, and something to keep hold of as the film gets increasingly bizarre. One of the “rules” of the film, no outsiders, keeps it gripping as we are forced to zero in on this disturbing and beautiful trio of women.
Above all, Braid is a magnificent dramatization of the intricate and sometime overdependent nature of longterm female friendship, with of course, a few bloody twists.
We screened the film at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival.
