{Movie Review} A Banquet Offers A Decent Feast of Frights

A Banquet is a heavy film that explores a family’s collective grief. Not only that, but it also circles back to the age-old conflict of faith and doubt. When a young woman, Betsey (Jessica Alexander), stops eating and blames otherworldly forces for her prolonged hunger strikes, her belief in the supernatural drives a wedge between family members. By now, most possession films have little new ground left to explore. Yet, like last year’s Saint Maud, A Banquet proves that there’s still some fertile ground left, even in this tired subgenre.

The film opens with a scene that’s quite a downer and hints at things to come. The mom, Holly (Sienna Guillory), tends to her husband, Jason (Richard Keep), who’s hospitalized. The cause of his condition isn’t revealed. But in the opening, he coughs and wheezes. Holly strokes his face and hugs him, all while trying to keep it together. You feel her pain here, and the dread she feels, knowing at any moment, she could lose her husband.

While Holly prepares food in a blender, Jason swallows bleach. Better to go out on your own terms, I guess, than endure prolonged suffering. This sets the bleak tone for the rest of the movie. There’s a lot to be said for the sound design in this opening, too. Jason’s coughing and wheezing overlap with the roar of the blender and the close-up of the mashed food, indicating how big of a role food will play. There are so many close-ups of it throughout the runtime. You also hear a baby wailing in the background, which is most likely the younger sister, Isabelle (Ruby Stokes). So we know that once Jason dies, Holly will be left to raise children alone.

Betsey’s Hunger Strikes

Not long into the film, Betsey wanders into the woods while at a party. Once she emerges, she’s never the same. She refuses to eat. Yet, she doesn’t lose weight. Her hunger strikes worsen the tension between her and her mom. This is best illustrated during dinner scenes when Holly pleads for her daughter to eat. At one point, Holly snaps that Betsey must be anorexic and entitled. These scenes feel both tense and unpredictable, a strong representation of a family reeling.

There’s not anything supernatural happening during these moments, but rather, a major conflict between mother and daughter. In fact, that’s what really drives the film, not so much the supernatural, but these complicated family dynamics. This movie works best when it anchors itself to the mother/daughter relationship. Here we have a mom who lost her husband, now fearful she’ll lose her oldest daughter, too.

The Film’s Handling of Faith and Doubt

The film’s other strength is the way it handles faith and doubt. The biggest skeptic is grandmother June (Lindsay Duncan). She accuses Betsey of faking it, acting strangely for attention. Duncan gives a solid performance here, as a villain of sorts that worsens tensions within the family. This disbelief creates a further divide within the family. June eventually accuses Betsey of “infecting” the family and wants Holly to send her away, to a better institution where she can get professional help. Again, this is a film that drips with tension at all the right moments, especially when mothers and daughters lash out against each other.

This war between faith and doubt all builds to a somewhat befuddling ending that may leave viewers scratching their heads. Still, if you look at this film as an exploration of a family’s collective trauma and the desperation to heal, then the ending makes more sense.

Overall, A Banquet is worth your time. It contains some real hair-raising scenes and leaves open the possibility that its protagonist may or may not be possessed. That’s really for the viewer to decide. Alexander and Guillory especially give strong performances, playing a daughter and mother at odds with each other and finding their own ways to grieve. Director Ruth Paxton has a strong feature here, and I look forward to seeing what she does next. This is one harrowing representation of grief.