Queen of Earth

Available in cinemas and on VOD Fri 1 Jul 2016

Mental Illness and cinema seem to work well together. Melancholia (directed by Lars Von Trier) explicitly depicted depression with the backdrop of the end of the world. The Hours (directed by Stephen Daldry) again showed life with mental illness with a visceral and passionate portrayal of depression. With Queen of Earth director Alex Ross Perry takes a more personal and intimate approach. Perry makes full use of the tropes of psychological horror to draw the viewer in and keep them on edge and this is the driving force of the turmoil and anxiety that is presented on screen.

The story of Queen of Earth centres on Catherine (Elisabeth Moss), a young woman who lives with depression. Catherine does her best to live in the shadow of her famous artist father, despite her own ambitious as a visual artist. She retreats to a cabin in the wilderness with her close friend Virginia (Katherine Waterson). The purpose of the trip is to relax and bond as friends, but things go tragically awry as Catherine’s mental state diminishes with brutally emotional consequences.

At times Queen of Earth verges on cabin in the woods style horror, with our two main characters isolated in the middle of nowhere, with a creepy young man (Patrick Fugit) staying in the adjacent cabin being the main source of company. The film always seem to draw back when the menace and torment is heightened. The characters find themselves in social situations such as house parties, where the tone changes from personal trauma and verges towards a public social anxiety. When this occurs the fear and horror becomes watered down and the movie is more like a tragic drama as opposed to an intimate and subtle horror movie.

The director plays with time where we see Catherine looking back at more happy occasions in previous trips to the cabin with her boyfriend. These segments work well and add to the overall confusion that the movie depicts. Queen of Earth is a fine portrayal of the delicate human condition, but seems to verge too far from the tragedy it attempts to present to be a fully satisfying cinema experience.