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| Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman in The Babadook |
Samuel: Noah Wiseman
Claire: Hayley McElhinney
Robbie: Daniel Henshall
Mrs. Roach: Barbara West
Oskar: Benjamin Winspear
Director: Jennifer Kent
Screenplay: Jennifer Kent
Cinematography: Radek Ladczuk
Production design: Alex Holmes
Film editing: Simon Njoo
Music: Jed Kurzel
As a horror movie, The Babadook often feels derivative and somewhat overloaded with shocks. But as a fable about the psychology of stress and grief, it's a remarkably effective film. There is more to Amelia, brilliantly played by Essie Davis, than just a victim of malevolence. She is a woman under stress, not only suffering the aftereffects of grief but also lost in a world with which she can't connect. Parenting is something one goes through alone, the film seems to be saying, and some of us, especially those cut adrift by the terrible accident that deprives Amelia of the support of her husband, are not fully equipped to handle the stress of a somewhat hyperactive child, an uncomprehending sister, a depressing workplace, unresponsive doctors, rigid schools, suspicious police, and bureaucratic social workers. The only person to whom Amelia has to turn is an elderly neighbor suffering from Parkinson's. I think Kent has loaded the dice against Amelia a bit too much if she wants us to take The Babadook seriously as a portrait of a parent in extremis, and I wish she hadn't staged her film in the cliché Old Dark House -- the horrors Amelia and Samuel encounter would have been even more telling if they'd appeared in a nondescript suburban home. But there's much to ponder in Kent's unsettling fable.
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