fWritten by: Rebecca Sonnenshine
Starring: Lee Pace, Carrie Coon, Amy Smart, Ray Baker
Rating: [3/5]
Grieving a child’s loss can rip even the healthiest of marriages apart, as it creates a trauma quite like no other. It begins a finality to a life that has barely lived and leaves those parents in a place where they must decide where they go from here. The couple in The Keeping Hours experience this but when returning to the home they shared, they find a ray of hope and a supernatural phenomenon that reconfigures their lives.
Now divorced following the death of their son Jacob (Sander Thomas), Mark (Lee Pace) and Elizabeth (Carrie Coon) have done their best to move forward with their lives just not with each other. When Mark returns to the home they shared after renters trashed it, Mark finds an apparition of their dead son who has suddenly returned, much to his shock.
The situation The Keeping Hours puts Mark and Elizabeth through creates quite the moral quandary as they struggle with the loss of someone so special to them and has abruptly come back. Not entirely but in the form of an apparition they can see clearly but cannot touch. A way of having their son back and providing moments where they can make up for lost time but not fully for obvious reasons. A bittersweet moment for them that while bringing them some moments of what appears as their son, they get to speak to each other in ways they have not in many years. Given how their initial interaction goes says plenty about where they have left off with each other and this blessing or curse, depending on how one views it, changes the dynamic allowing for something to view throughout this film.
As gets displayed in flashbacks, other than the trauma that Mark and Elizabeth shared because of their son’s death but also the guilt and blame that broke them apart. The moment where it happened during a car crash where they each held blame for each other as to why Jacob died. With Mark feeling Elizabeth did not strap the kid in properly to safely secure himself prior to the accident that claimed his life. This guilt chewed away at their sanity and ability to even be able to stomach each other’s presence, and Jacob’s return allows for some insight on the truth of the matter.
One of the major questions this film then poses is whether this apparition of Jacob represents the real boy, or perhaps something much more sinister. If one were to watch the trailer, it certainly gives the appearance of some horror undertones to this story where it leaves room for questioning whether this spirit of Jacob comes to help provide some closure for the parents or something else. Certainly two different approaches, and this film seeks to toe that line carefully in displaying the naturally terrifying elements of seeing this apparition in addition to the emotionally resonant ones.
For as much as I can enjoy everything done here, this film sure loves its melodrama and perhaps goes over the top with what gets required of these actors. Sure, this circumstance calls for extraordinary measures but it can also get a bit much for my liking as we see here. It only gets further heightened when seeing where exactly the plot goes with Elizabeth’s character and the way things begin to shift for her. Yes, overly dramatic but I cannot deny the effectiveness in how it all comes together, especially in the way the story completely wraps up.
With The Keeping Hours, Karen Moncrieff continues to demonstrate her proficiency as a filmmaker. Never necessarily wowing with what she makes but certainly brings stories to the forefront that emotionally delve into their characters and the circumstances they find themselves in. This film dives more into the supernatural as it explores grief through more than just their own inner turmoil but rather something that enters their lives and makes them react and make decisions because of it. Lee Pace and Carrie Coon each turn in respectable performances as the parents, and the child actor certainly did some child acting. Keeping a good mix of emotion and horror to keep everyone on their toes, this feature does just enough to get it over the line despite its flaws.
Films with Josh 
